Re: Discussion About Community Contributions to NetBeans

Hi Tom,

I was reading your discussion regarding community contributions to NetBeans
and was quite surprised at how few people contribute to the project.  I have
to admit that I have not contributed to the NetBeans project myself, but
would like to know more about getting started.  As for the reasons why I
have not yet made a contribution:

1. Well, first off, I never really thought about it.  NetBeans always worked
fine for me in the past, and for some reason I always had the idea that it
was a well funded project, rather than a typical open-source project.
2. I'm still very new to programming, and many open-source projects prefer
people with some years of experience behind them.  If NetBeans could promote
a newby-friendly environment I'm sure many people would want to contribute.

Personally I think we (and I include myself here) don't realize the value of
contributions to a project.  In the past I often thought of a bug-report as
"*something other people do.*"  The few times that I found a bug in open
source projects I always thought "well, by this time someone must have
reported it, so It's no use to do it now."

Best regards,

Armand Botha