Re: Contributing to Qemu

[Manos Pitsidianakis <manos.pitsidianakis@linaro.org>]

On Sun, 08 Sep 2024 10:28, Joseph Kurape <jkurape@gmail.com> wrote:
>Hello,
>
>I'm new to open-source, but I've learned C and Python.
>
>I've read the 'Getting Started' guide, but aside from signing up for the
>mailing list and getting the source code, it doesn't provide much direction
>for beginners.
>
>I'm looking for somewhere I can contribute. Could any maintainer suggest
>any issue they need fixing or offer general directions on the best way to
>get started?

Hello Joseph!

First, the bad news: QEMU is a sophisticated and complicated project, 
and I would not recommend it as the first foray of serious programming 
to most people. But the good news is, it is still possible to contribute 
without being an expert simply because QEMU is composed of many 
different things.

The usual advice is to take a look at the issues labelled as 
"Bite-Sized" on our Issue tracker:

https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/issues/?sort=created_date&state=opened&label_name%5B%5D=Bite+Sized&first_page_size=50

Take your time looking at each of them and you can choose something that 
looks approachable to you.

Note: I see that in many issues people say they want to contribute and 
ask for the issue to be assigned to them- no need to do that! Focus on 
writing down your solution and sending it to the list while following 
the "submitting a patch" docs: 
https://www.qemu.org/docs/master/devel/submitting-a-patch.html

If you have any kind of technical question you should ask on IRC, if you 
happen on any developer being online at the same time as you, or on the 
list. Do not ask people in private because not only will less people see 
your question, but most QEMU maintainers only pay attention to the 
mailing list for QEMU related discussion.

If you have any more questions feel free to ask!