How to help KDE

Are you looking for a way to start helping the KDE project?
If so, this is the page for you.

Introduction

Here you will find descriptions of small projects including coding, graphics, writing documentation and any other activities that directly help KDE projects, but which aren't currently assigned to a specific developer. Most of the projects that are shown here require little time, but varying degrees of development skill.

The KDE Quality Team website is a good place to start, as it offers support and coordination for all volunteers, being programmers, enthusiasts, testers, writers, etc. While the programmers work is a necessary condition to build a desktop environment, there are many other important tasks in a project of this magnitude that can be performed by contributors who know little about programming. In order to support volunteers with different degrees of knowledge, the Quality Team offers step by step guides for common development tasks such as building KDE from source, and working with SVN. You will find several newbie development guides as well: the Documentation HOWTO, the User Interface HOWTO, the Bug And Wish Reports Management HOWTO, the KDE Programming HOWTO, the Communication And Promotion HOWTO, and the Media HOWTO

If you don't know where to start or what to do, check the Quality Team tasks page, which offers a list of possible tasks, and requirements to complete them. Tasks include testing KDE, testing patches, managing bugs and wishes, providing screenshots, reviewing documentation, writing documentation, writing whatsThis, writing articles, programming, maintaining license and copyright information, and maintaining developer documentation.

If you are a developer, and wish to get acquainted to the fascinating and overwhelming work of one of the biggest and best free software projects in the world, the KDE Developer's Corner website offers more documentation for programmers who want to start hacking KDE, such as HOWTOs and FAQs, tutorials, standards, references and APIs.
You might find it convenient to take a look at the open tasks where you may find something to your taste.

If you are about to start a new KDE application, here is a small note about what KDE already has. This should help you decide if yet another Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client or image viewer is really necessary. Go to kde-apps.org and Freshmeat.NET and search for the type of application you are thinking of writing or just browse the lists there. If you find a project in these lists that interests you, you might want to contact the author(s) and offer your help directly.

Please note that you are still free to choose. You may still wish to start another Integrated Development Environment (IDE) or Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client of your own. However this is contrary to one of the most important advantages of free / open source software concepts: reuse of valuable code.

You might find it convenient to take a look at the open tasks where you may find something to your taste. If you have questions, feel free to email howtohelp@kde.org.

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