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KDE Community HOWTO

Introduction

In the KDE community, many participants from all over the world meet each other as one of the biggest and most productive Free Software teams in existence. This would not be possible without the support and hard work of thousands of people around the world, including those who create and use KDE.

This document offers some guidance on ensuring the large number of KDE participants can cooperate effectively, and how we can strengthen and support each other.

How to get involved

You can contribute to KDE in many ways. A few examples:

Summary how to submit artwork to kde-look.org and how to get more involved with the KDE artists
Summary how to report bugs, who to triage them, etc (with link to specialised HOWTO)
Summary how to get involved in the documentation or translation teams
Summary how to get involved in the promotion teams
Summary how to send patches (both for applications in the KDE repository and those only on kde-apps.org), and how to apply for an SVN account (with link to the SVN HOWTO and to release freeze rules)
Summary how to upload your own code to kde-apps.org and how to get your application included in the KDE repository (with link to specialised HOWTO)
Whom to ask if you have other contribution ideas and are unsure where to go

How to Communicate

Use common sense. Keep the following basic rules in the back of your mind:

Be respectful: assume people mean well, no personal attacks, no racist/sexist/... behaviour, respect other cultures
How to avoid misunderstandings: Try to be clear and concise, remember it is easy to misunderstand emails (especially in the case of non-native speakers), ask for clarifications if unsure how something is meant
How to deal with disagreements: do not feed trolls, take your time to breath through before writing heated replies, consider a 24 hour moratorium if emotional language is being used. what to do when communication fails, how to react when you see other community members suffering from abuse, etc.

How to be a Good Team Member

Try to cooperate with other KDE contributors as well as possible. This includes:

Collaborate: communicate with others, give credit to the work of others, ask for help if you are unsure, how to deal with conflicts of interest
Be supportive: leadership by example, be patient and generous, help both newcomers and people who are in danger of burning out, ...
Delegate: How to get others involved to help you, how to communicate if you need to step down from some job temporarily (e.g. holiday or an interfering real-life) or forever (moving on)