Re: Question: Can I donate to an Apache project? (was Re: Will Tomee be discontinued ?)

Hi David,

Am 20.03.2024 um 01:16 schrieb David Blevins:
> Are there others in Bert's position who have employer support to contribute but aren't sure where to start?

I'm sort of... I am self-employed, this means if I'm deciding to 
contribute to the project it more or less will be part of my 'job'. So I 
will have the employer support as I am the employer ;-)

One problem is: I'm dependent to my customers and to running projects 
and deadlines. So even if I'm the employer I do not have complete 
control over my spare times. And this means, in order to not burn out, 
there may be times (in the range from days to several weeks) where I 
won't be able to contribute one minute to the project. And then there 
may be times at which I will be able to contribute several hours a week.

Another problem is: I'm afraid, I will have to learn quite a bunch of 
things before I will be of any real help to the project. Although I'm 
already doing some JSF Appliactions my knowledge of the EE 
universe/specifications is limited. Up to now it's more cherry picking 
the stuff I need for my projects.

So.... I really would like to contribute to the project, but it may turn 
out that eventually I will not have enough time or will fail in 
understanding all the EE specifications and their dependencies.  And 
because I know that it will be additional work for you and the other 
active contributors to educate me (or at least give helping hands here 
and there), I'm hesitating.

But: if we are able to find some more people like me and Bert (means: 
want to help but aren't sure if they will be able to and where to start) 
it may be worth the effort of building some sort of "how to start 
contributing to tomee" documentation based on the experience with us. I 
see two advantages:
1) You may be more comfortable to invest your time in teaching us, 
because there is the chance that at least one or two of the group will 
stay and contribute to the project.
2) This can create some sort of basic "HowTo start..." documentation as 
a side effect. This alone would raise the chances to get new 
contributors in the future. Because don't underestimate the effect of 
being able to test and play around "alone in the basement, without 
somebody looking over your shoulder". But for this, somebody would need 
some starter in form of a short document with "you need this... a) b) 
c)..." and "you should look here...1) 2) 3).....". Means lowering the 
"inhibition threshold" so that an interested person can dig into it 
without the need to first register to a mailing list or the like.

So, yes, if we find some more people, I would be happy to participate as 
a "trainee in a training group".

cu
Jens