How does one become a triager?

[Lorenzo Salvadore]

On Sunday 28 October 2018 15:19, Matthew Seaman <matthew at FreeBSD.org> wrote:

> On 28/10/2018 08:54, Lorenzo Salvadore via freebsd-questions wrote:
>
> > > > Hello.
> > >
> > > Hi.
> > >
> > > > I saw on bugzilla that some users are FreeBSD triagers. If I understood
> > > > correctly, this means that they try to keep the bugs database clean and
> > > > easy to use and they ensure that the right labels, keywords, tags etc. are
> > > > in the right place.
> > > > However, I was unable to find anywhere how does one become a
> > > > triager: does this work like for committers as some sort of reward or
> > > > is it on volunteer basis?
> > >
> > > I suppose you are talking about the Bugmeisters:
> > > https://www.freebsd.org/administration.html#t-bugmeister
> > > So, they are FreeBSD Developers with that task assigned to them.
> > >
> > > > Thank you.
> > > > Lorenzo Salvadore.
> > >
> > > Best Regards,
> > > Alexandre C. Guimarães.
> >
> > Thank you very much, indeed I had not understand that the triagers
> > and the bugmeisters were the same thing.
>
> There's a bit of a misconception here: people aren't 'assigned' to
> bugmeister@ -- they volunteer. In fact, pretty much everything about
> FreeBSD development is done on a purely voluntary basis. Yes, there are
> a few people employed by the FreeBSD Foundation or by various vendors
> (to maintain drivers for certain hardware typically) who don't
> necessarily just work on what they fancy working on whenever they feel
> like it, but they are definitely in the minority.
>
> This means that many FreeBSD developers are doing the work only as their
> available free time allows. Consequently, there's always a backlog of
> "stuff that should be done" and a shortage of people stepping up to do
> it. Anyone wanting to become involved in the project will be welcomed
> gladly and if they show any consistent tendency to contribute over time,
> they will be punished with a commit bit, or (if their contributions are
> not so much in the area of writing code) possibly the relatively new
> project membership status.
>
> A lot of jobs get taken up by existing developers for the pretty simple
> reason that developers tend to go to devsummits where project needs are
> discussed, where many other developers get to know them and their
> interests and so they are quite likely to get the suggestion that this
> is a job they might like to do. In many cases, there's no intrinsic
> requirement for people to be committers in order to do a lot of jobs
> around the project, it's just that historically the project has been
> much better at recruiting developers than people with talents in other
> directions.
>
> So, for the OP, my advice is: talk to people, get to know and become
> known around the community. Contact the bugmeister@ team and ask about
> volunteering. Discuss with them how you might be able to help out, and
> then get stuck in.
>
> If you can afford it, go to FreeBSD conferences or other events where
> you can meet FreeBSD people face to face -- that makes a big difference.
> There are conferences spread around the world: since the OP is
> apparently in Switzerland, perhaps a visit to FOSDEM in Brussels next
> February, or EuroBSDCon which will be in Lillehammer, Norway next September.

Thank you very much for your answer: indeed, it is very useful and helped me
understand better how contribution works and how I can contribute more and better
myself.

Thanks.

Lorenzo Salvadore.