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What: Gentoo contributors get together to help each other fix bugs

Where: irc.freenode.net, #gentoo-bugs

When: Saturday, July 5, in a timezone near you

What do you need to bring?

• A Gentoo system, an Internet connection and an IRC client
• Your bug. If you don't have one, we will find you one to suit your area of interest and your skills
• Your favorite editor
• A way to test that your bug is fixed (asking people counts!)
• You don't need to know C, C++, or bash

What's a bug? Gentoo's way of tracking change requests. A change request can be anything from "I've found a typo in foo" to "I've built this really useful program called bar but there's no ebuild for it." Bugs have various levels of helpfulness, from identifying the existence of a problem to localizing the problem to providing the patch to fix it.

There are bugs in documentation such as man pages as well as ebuilds and the source code that Gentoo distributes. These bugs are problem reports. Bugs for things Gentoo doesn't do yet but you think should be done are feature requests. Bugday is more about fixing problems than adding features, but you won't be turned away if you want help with a new feature.

Want to know more about Bugday? It's held on the first Saturday of every month. It's an opportunity for everyone to contribute to making Gentoo better, and eventually you might even become a Gentoo developer. See the Bugday project page for more details.

Bugday is about community spirit. Gentoo is a community—there is no "me" and "them", there is only "we," so instead of lobbying for "them" to fix your particular bug, work together to fix it! Bugday is an opportunity to get help to help yourself.

If you've been wanting to get involved but weren't sure how, Bugday is a great way for you to see what goes on in making a distribution and get involved in Gentoo.

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Roy Bamford contributed the draft for this announcement.

The June issue of the Gentoo Monthly Newsletter has been released. In this month's issue: LinuxTag and FliSoL, GSOC interview, Gentoo in space, and more!

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Developer Donnie Berkholz, who is a council member, the X maintainer and PR team lead, spoke with David Abbott of LinuxCrazy. Download the podcast.

He described how he became a developer as well as his work on X, the council, the public relations team and the Summer of Code project he's mentoring for. Donnie also recommended the best video cards if you support open source. He saw the Linux desktop's future as increasing integration and security. Here's how Donnie described how Gentoo makes progress and where to go from here:

"The more time I spend in Gentoo, the more I realize that it's the individual developers who really drive most of our innovations. They don't happen because the council makes a decision. They happen because the developer, or a few of them, think that it sounds like a cool idea, and make it happen. ..."

"Making Gentoo great is my biggest goal right now, and greatness is a process. It's not a place. So you can't get somewhere and say you're great. You always have to keep striving for it. For a while we've been content to stick with the status quo instead of striving for greatness, but we have to change that and to always improve Gentoo."

If you would rather read it, forums user dch24 created a transcript of the interview.

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The May issue of the Gentoo Monthly Newsletter has been released. In this month's issue: Gentoo Foundation status, Summer of Code interview, network monitoring, and more!

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If you're interested in the legal standing of Gentoo, you can relax because in the past week, the State of New Mexico declared that the Gentoo Foundation Inc has returned to good standing and is free to do business. This accomplishment allows other aspects of the foundation's work to proceed again. The foundation takes care of Gentoo's intellectual property (copyrights, trademarks) and money. It ensures that nobody violates our copyrights and trademarks, serves as a place to hold money, and decides where to devote that money.

Thanks to everyone involved with returning Gentoo to good legal standing, and thanks to our community for your patience!

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Joshua Jackson and Josh Nichols contributed the draft for this announcement.

2008.0_beta2 is here. Thanks to you, our community, for testing beta1 and filing many bugs. You can help make 2008.0 amazing! Test out this beta and report any functionality issues you encounter. Since this is still a beta, we're looking only for bugs in functionality, not bugs in appearance such as desktop backgrounds or other artwork.

This should be the last beta and will be followed by the final 2008.0 release after further bug fixing.

Get 2008.0_beta2 from the usual places.

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The April issue of the Gentoo Monthly Newsletter has been released. In this month's issue: Summer of Code, Interview with Hyves, Speedup your boot time... and more!

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Council member Mike Frysinger, one of the most experienced and most active Gentoo developers, talked to David Abbott of LinuxCrazy. Download the podcast here.

Mike described his work on the toolchain (gcc, glibc, binutils) and embedded Gentoo, and he explained the short- and long-term goals of the Gentoo Council.

He also told a story about how and why he got into Linux and shortly after into Gentoo, explained the origins of both his nicks, vapier and SpanKY ("I came up with SpanKY because I needed something people would fear"), and described his typical day ("I wake up and keep programming until I fall asleep").

If you would rather read it, Marc Murphy created a transcript of the interview.

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Łukasz Damentko contributed the draft for this announcement.

OpenRC, the replacement for Gentoo's current services system (known as baselayout), will soon reach ~arch on all platforms. It replaces the previous bash-only rc system in baselayout with an rc system that has a C-based core and uses only POSIX-compliant shell code.

OpenRC runs natively on a wide variety of systems. Out of the box, it's compatible with Gentoo Linux, Gentoo/FreeBSD, Embedded Gentoo, and Gentoo VServers. It also works with FreeBSD and NetBSD and, once some installation problems get fixed, will be added to their package repositories, ports and pkgsrc.

Before upgrading, read the OpenRC Migration Guide so you update your system properly once OpenRC and baselayout 2 are installed.

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Doug Goldstein contributed the draft for this announcement.

Roy Bamford, the newly elected President of the Gentoo Foundation's trustees, spoke with David Abbott from LinuxCrazy. You can download the podcast.

He talked about recent challenges the Gentoo Foundation faces, among other topics. You can learn about the reinstatement of the foundation, short- and long-term plans, a possible move to the Software Freedom Conservancy and answers to some common questions, like how you can contribute to Gentoo. On a more personal note, you can hear about Roy's long Linux and Gentoo experience, his hardware and the origin of his nickname, NeddySeagoon.

If you would rather read it, David Hubbard created a transcript of the interview.

David Abbott plans to interview more well-known Gentoo developers. Next on the list is Mike Frysinger, a member of the Gentoo Council and many Gentoo core projects like the base system and the toolchain. We'll keep you posted.

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Łukasz Damentko contributed the draft for this announcement.