Participation

participation

Introduction

Participation is a positive, constructive and rewarding experience.

The world of Free Software is a community compose of thousands of volunteer individuals and commercial entities who believes in the value and benefits of non-proprietary software.

Anyone can participate in a project that is community base and is a Free/Libre/Open-Source Software (FLOSS). Volunteer your time, sponsor the project of your choice or just use the products. Read more about FLOSS in wiki. Have an innovative idea? You can elicit help from the community to make it happen. e.g. http://savannah.gnu.org/

Although FLOSS is about software freedom, its ideas really transcend that. It is about freedom: freedom from monopolistic controls, freedom to share, freedom to study each other's ideas and most of all freedom to build on each other's work. For example: an artist may be interested in creating artistic contents with Creative Commons license, a musician may be interested in publishing their work on patent free media like Ogg Vorbis/Theora or a scientist may produce and license work under Science Commons.

So who benefits from all this? You, me, everyone from the third world to the first.

In the long run, innovations are the only sustainable way to raise the standard of living for everyone. Efforts like CC and FLOSS free us to do just that. Read more in Why FLOSS.

How to Help

There are many ways to participate, just to name a few:

  1. Just use it - creating community network
  2. Testing
  3. Documentation
  4. Translation/Language Preservation
  5. Usability/Human Factor
  6. Artistic Content/Font Design
  7. Sponsoring
  8. Program Development
  9. Community Support
  10. Professional Advice

Suggested Projects

The following are some suggested projects, another place to look is in Savanah.gnu.org/people, more are available out there.

  1. Productivity Software
  2. Graphic Software
  3. Multimedia Software
  4. Internet Software
  5. Games Software
  6. Medical/Dental Software
  7. Software Development
  8. Digital Rights
If these and others are not to your liking you can always start your own project.

Updated: 2007-06-26

How to Help

volunteers icon

  1. Just use it - creating community netowrk

    By using a product from FLOSS you are helping to increase the community network. This is the by far the most rewarding, easiest and least time consuming contribution anyone can make. As it turns out, it is also one of the most important contribution.

  2. Testing

    Most projects have different levels of testing, e.g. component, integration, system and user acceptance testing. Most non-technical people can do user acceptance test with a little time. All you have to do is use the application and report bugs to the developers. Just make sure you are not relying on the alpha version for your business.

    For those interested in this profession read more in wiki.

  3. Documentation

    Do you have good grammar, spelling? Are you a writer between gigs? Or retired with time on your hands. Every project needs better documentations. If you spot bad grammar and/or spelling mistake on this page or any other places, simply notify the project owner and they will appreciate your help.

    For those interested in the technical writing profession read more in wiki.

  4. Translation/Language Preservation

    Are you fluent in more than one language? Many projects are designed with multiple languages in mind and only require translation to make it work in other languages. Aside from documentations, and GUI, there is also user forums and mailing list in other languages you can support.

    Are you a linguist? How about preserving an obscure language in patent free media so everyone can have access to it, study it for all time.

    For those interested in translation as a profession read more in wiki.

  5. Usability/Human Factor

    Don't like how things work? Think the developers neglected human factors? Many applications have a GUI, all of them have a workflow and most welcomes constructive criticisms.

    For those interested in this topic read more in wiki.

  6. Artistic Content/Font Design

    Do you have artistic talents? Can you draw, create icons, graphics and donate some of them to the public domain. Read Graphic Software section for more details on projects. Would you consider publishing some of your work under CC license?

    Are you a musician? Can you do some recordings with Ogg Vorbis and publish them to an on-line music store that support patented free media. Don't worry, you can still sell your CDs, your true fans will always support you and go to your concerts. Putting it on patent free media returns ownership to you and your fans. It also makes it easier to redistribute - spreading your name and music wider and faster. Read Multimedia Section for suggested on-line music stores and more. Not convinced? Read the following article on Download Music from CBC Indepth.

    Do you know about typographic design? Can you donate some free fonts in different languages? More decent free fonts are needed in Linux. For those interested in type design read more in wiki on Typography, Typefaces and Computer Fonts.

    Read more about CC licensing in CreativeCommons.org.

  7. Sponsor your favourite project. It doesn't have to be a new wing of a building, small donations will add up as well. Most projects use the money for conference meetings, web-hosting fees etc.

  8. Program Development

    Aside from software developers, researchers and engineers build computer programs too! If you are a researcher or an engineer would you consider developing your work under FLOSS so that other researchers and engineers can build on your work?

  9. Community Support

    If you are familiar with an application and see someone on the mailing list yelling for help, help!

  10. Professional Advice

    Are you a doctor, a lawyer? There are medical systems that could use your help if you are a doctor; there are digital rights that need defending if you are a lawyer. See Medical/Dental Software and Digital Rights in Suggested Projects for referring URLs.

    But what if I am a librarian? Well, there are projects out there for you too, read more in www.libsuccess.org.

    Are you a researcher, a scientist? Would you consider publishing some of your work under the Science Commons licenses? Read more in Science Commons.

Updated: 2007-06-26

Back to top

Suggested Projects

projects icon

  1. Productivity Software

    1. GNOME desktop is the default GUI for the Debian distribution of Linux. There are lots to do here. Aside from the regular stuff, there is journalism, marketing, web admin, etc. For more read Join Gnome for details.

    2. Office

      1. Openoffice is a collection of office software, word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, etc.
      2. AbiWord - a native word processor.
      3. gnumeric - a spreadsheet application.
      4. gLabel is a label and business card maker. Convenient.

    3. Finance

      1. GnuCash - a financial management program for personal or small businesses.
      2. Grisbi is a personal financial management program with multiple currencies. An alternative to GnuCash.
      3. AIOTrade (formerly Humai Trader) is a free, open source stock technical analysis tool built on pure java. Humai Trader will also be a platform for custom indicators and charts. The main interest will be W.D. Gann's approach. (note: requires Java 1.5.)

    4. Educational and Research

      For researchers, publish any software you may share under LGPL licenses and allow others to build on your work. For educators tell your students about FLOSS available to them such as the following. Read more about licenses in wiki.

      1. GNU Octave is a high-level language, primarily intended for numerical computations. It provides a convenient command line interface for solving linear and nonlinear problems numerically, and for performing other numerical experiments using a language that is mostly compatible with Matlab.
      2. Gnu R is for statistical computing and graphics. It provides a wide variety of statistical and graphical techniques: linear and nonlinear modelling, statistical tests, time series analysis, classification, clustering, etc. For more read R project homepage. Similar to S, alternative to SAS to those who are familiar with statistical packages.
      3. Rmetrics is for financial market analysis and valuation of financial instruments. With hundreds of functions build on modern and powerful methods Rmetrics combines explorative data analysis and statistical modeling with object oriented rapid prototyping. Rmetrics is a collection of R functions, both building an environment which creates especially for students and researchers in the third world a first class system for applications in statistics and finance.
      4. gretl Is a cross-platform software package for econometric analysis.

    Updated: 2007-06-08

    Back to top

  2. Graphic Software

    1. Open Clip Art Library is a collection of 100% license-free, royalty-free, and restriction-free art that you can use for any purpose. png and svg format is also availabe. Create new clip art and donate them to the library, or using existing clip art to create new ones and deposit it back.
    2. Art.gnome.org is a collection of artwork and themes for GNOME Desktop. Donate your artwork and let others use it as a desktop background.
    3. Gimp - a bitmap graphics editor, check the Getting Involve section or the donation section for ways to contribute.
    4. Skencil is another vector base drawing program. You can pay the developer to work on skencil - a unique resource sharing idea.
    5. Sodipodi uses W3C SVG as its native file format. It accepts donations.

    Updated: 2006-11-25

    Back to top

  3. Multimedia Software

    Multimedia on Linux is a controversial topic. While the technology is available to play and encode almost any kind of media such as mp3 or mpeg, many of the popular formats have patent restrictions which prevents any commercial entities from distributing them without paying complicated patents and royalty fees.

    This is why the use of alternative patent free media should be encouraged. For example: patent free technology such as Ogg Vorbis for lossy audio, Ogg Flac for lossless audio and Ogg Theora for video encoding.

    1. Media Production

      1. Ardour is a digital audio workstation. They are seeking financial support.
      2. Cinelerra is a professional video-editing suite for capturing, compositing, and editing audio and video with sample level accuracy. They are also seeking financial support.
      3. Provide your audience with Ogg Vorbis/Flac for audio or Ogg Theora for video as alternative and tell them there are Ogg plugins available for Windows® platform. For example : Windows Media® Player, RealPlayer® and Quick Time/iTunes® Player. Mac OS X users have choices too, please read more....

    2. Musician's Corner

      1. LilyPond takes ASCII input and produces musical scores (this is a standalone version.) They will accept help.
      2. Solfege is a free music education software. Use it to train your rhythm, interval, scale and chord skills. Smarten your ears! They also accept contributions.

    3. Examples of Ogg Media Productions

      Use sites that provides Ogg media as an alternative. Everytime you use Ogg media the statistical usage goes up and content provider will pay attention and increase content availability.

      1. Jamendo.com is a commercial on-line music store supporting Ogg Vorbis codec.
      2. Mindawn is a commercial on-line music store supporting Ogg Vorbis/Flac codecs. You won't find major label releases. They are mostly independent artists.
      3. Quirks & Quarks is a CBC production hosted by Bob McDonald. It features a weeky episode of the latest in science, technology, medicine and the environment. You can find ogg audios in its archive.
      4. PBS's NerdTV provides Ogg Vorbis as an option for its audio segments.
      5. WPCE classical streaming Internet radio station.
      6. Additional list of sites that uses Ogg Vorbis. Vorbis is the alternative to mp3.

    Updated: 2006-11-25

    Back to top

  4. Internet Software

    1. Mozilla Firefox - Next generation Internet Browser from Mozilla.
    2. Mozilla Suite consists of a web browser, composer, e-mail and newsgroup client with junk filter.
    3. Gaim - a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client, tell your windows friends about Gaim on Windows®.
    4. GnomeMeeting or Ekiga -Ekiga (formerly known as GnomeMeeting) is an open source VoIP and video conferencing application for GNOME. Ekiga uses both the H.323 and SIP protocols. It supports many audio and video codecs, and is interoperable with other SIP compliant software and also with Microsoft NetMeeting. Read more about VoIP in wiki.
    5. ClamAV - anti-virus software. This project accepts help and donations.

    Updated: 2006-11-25

    Back to top

  5. Games Software

    1. Linux Games

      • qGo is a GUI client for playing the game of Go against another player by connecting to Go servers on the internet or alternatively go against the GNU Go engine. They are seeking translators.
      • GNOME games- contribute to a growing collection of games for the GNOME desktop. There are sixteen games including card games, puzzle games, and arcade games.
      • GCompris is an educational software, which propose different activities to children from 2 to 10 years old. They are seeking someone to contribute to their wiki.

    Updated: 2006-11-25

    Back to top

  6. Medical/Dental Software

    Debian Med is a collection of free software systems for tasks in the medical care profession. Here are some examples :
    • Medical practise
    • Virtual Medical School
    • Hospital Information Systems
    • Molecular Biology and Medical Genetics
    • Medical Imaging
    • Dental practise
    • Veterinary Medicine
    • Drug databases
    • Medical Record
    • Pharmacy
    • Documentation and Research

    Updated: 2006-11-25

    Back to top

  7. Software Development

    • The Free Software Foundation (FSF), is an organization advocating computer users' rights to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs through the use of free software, particularly the GNU operating system, used widely in its GNU/Linux variant. Read more about their philosophy.... Before you start a project check this page and find out if there are any overlaps to existing projects.
    • Become a member of fsf.org [FSF Associate Member].

    Updated: 2006-11-25

    Back to top

    • Electronic Frontier Foundation(EFF) is a nonprofit group of passionate people - lawyers, technologists, volunteers, and visionaries all working to protect your digital rights. Read more about Digital Rights Management (DRM) in wiki.
    • The Free Software Foundation (FSF), is an organization advocating computer users' rights to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs through the free use of software.
    • The Creative Commons provides tools for authors, artists, and educators to mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. Changing "All Rights Reserved" into "Some Rights Reserved" - as the creator chooses.
    • The Science Commons' goal is to provide Open Access to scholarly literature and data, to identify and eases key barriers to the movement of information, tools and data through the scientific research cycle.

    Updated: 2006-11-25

    Back to top