Contributing to big open source projects

Does anyone here have experience contributing to big projects like KDE? What's it like, and what do you do? I really like KDE and I want to make some changes to a few of the effects and widgets, but I have no idea how to start. I know which files on git I need to modify (Present Windows), but I don't know if I should load it all up in a VM, a Docker container, or just run it in my current KDE session. I also have no clue if I'll have to compile the whole DE each time, or if the effect is modular, how to compile that... maybe you anons can help me, or I'll just have to ask the KDE IRC (which is slow as shit).

Anyway, this is a general thread so feel free to ignore my problem and brag about what you have done.

Other urls found in this thread:

community.kde.org/Get_Involved
community.kde.org/Get_Involved/development
pastebin.com/z1KcJCkV
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

They usually have a contribution guide, which is much more likely to answer your questions than any of us.

community.kde.org/Get_Involved

community.kde.org/Get_Involved/development
I guess I'll try this later, but it doesn't seem very detailed.

You probably only have to compile the specific library and have it replace the default library. If you're really lazy, maybe you can just make a backup of the original library and have your modified library replace that.

I've tried and failed to get the Openbox developers to bring back window snapping functionality like it had before v3. Think I'm going to have to learn the language and do it myself already.

pastebin.com/z1KcJCkV
This should help. I tried out openbox a few weeks ago and was wondering why I had to do that manually, I knew it used to tile. Why would they ever take that feature out in the first place? It's not like its the job of some other utility.

Saging for off-topic, but what distro to KDE fags prefer these days? Still OpenSUSE?

Yes, I have. I patched some things in Mint and was running my own versions for a while. Things I've learned:
- The code by Mint/Cinnamon devs is absolutely disgusting spaghetti turd. There are some very basic things that need to be fixed but I couldn't be bothered to do it myself because it would require a major rewrite and they won't accept it anyway.
- They still didn't accept my patches, not even one-liners that are unambiguous fixes of obvious bugs.
I'm not alone in these observations. Also look at how GNOME devs threat their users and contributors if you need some more motivation.

They are probably following the new GNOME philosophy: the more users it pisses off and the more basic the feature it is the better it is to remove it.

Not talking about automatic tiling. Window snapping is when windows get magnetized when they get a certain distance from the edge or other windows. It should be a toggle-able feature but apparently they removed it in the code transformation between v2 and v3. The window resistance it has now is a poor substitute.

Interesting.
How is the code bad, specifically?
Common code guidelines, bad formatting, unnecessary code? Or more severe stuff, like unclear uncommented code, buggyness, etc?

Would that be too difficult?
You could run a diff between both versions and extract the code they removed. Or maybe just look at the git log and find where they removed it.
Or did the codebase suffer a major rewrite altogether?

I hear Suse works well, but Arch (and derivatives such as Manjaro) or KDE Neon are the main ones people use now.

I've filed a number of bugs on KDE Bugzilla now, and I'd say half or more have been addressed. So the KDE devs seem a lot more responsive than GNOME devs.

One problem I've noticed while filing bug reports is that a lot of Linux DE devs are not so great at English. It can lead to a lot of closing/marking-as-duplicate/reopening of bugs because they don't fucking understand what you're saying.

Strange. Where are the 'master race' white devs spending their time?

Cheers, going to look at Neon, looks nice.

the devs I'm referring to are white, they're just European. a lot of KDE devs are German for instance.

v3 was a total rewrite from v2. And I've tried and failed to even get an old build of v2 to compile before.

Given how long Cinnamon takes to start up, I'm not surprised at all.

That is strange, Germans are usually very proficient in English, but fair enough, it isn't their native tongue.

"""""""""""""""""""""""Germans"""""""""""""""""""""""

No, that is not the problem at all with GNOME devs, they know very well the games they're playing. They will play dumb and say you're dumb instead. And when you stop treating them like they're fucking golden princes they will start saying you're being rude to them and need to shut up and go away. They answer bug reports with "No." Just that, a single word, "no", without any explanation.
Stop making excuses for their behavior. Distros have to fucking individually patch features back into GNOME's software, that's how fucked up the situation is, because the upstream wants to piss of their userbase and make things harder for maintainers.

nigger calm the fuck down, I wasn't even talking about GNOME devs.

New Germans don't contribute to KDE user, they contribute zero.