Contributing

The success of an Open Source project relies on the thriving community behind it. From participating in the mailing list to reporting bugs, there are many ways to contribute and be part of the active community.

We are often asked by members of the community how they can get involved in Open BlueDragon. We are excited to have you help. Below we've outlined a number of ways that you can help ensure the continued success of this project:

• Spread the Word

  Spreading awareness is vital in helping our community grow. Tell your work colleagues and everyone you meet about Open BlueDragon. You can also help by lending your graphical skills to design some "Powered By OpenBD" banners, and OpenBD t-shirts and merchandise. One conversation can make all the difference.

• Mailing List

  Participating in the Open BlueDragon mailing list is a valuable contribution. Responding to questions from others in the community, highlighting potential issues, suggesting improvements are all ways you can help ensure that the list continues to be a buzzing resource. Even if its firing a URL to the WIKI page that answers the question, every little helps.

• Bug Reports

  If you run into any bugs or potential incompatibilities then report them. It only takes one person to report that bug and make the engineers aware of it, but everyone else will benefit from the fix.

• Wiki

  We have a wiki that is fast becoming the fountain of all OpenBD related knowledge. Sign up for a free account and then add whatever knowledge you want to share with others about OpenBD - whether it's a small example snippet of how to use CFIMAP, or a tutorial on how to integrate Apache with Tomcat. No advice is too small to share.

• Admin Console

  Join the OpenBD admin console project and lend your CFML skills to this rapidly improving essential OpenBD app. Matt Woodward has made a great start with the initial release but there's plenty more features to be added to enrich the admin and bring it to the next level.

• Demos/Examples

  Help others appreciate the power of OpenBD and gain instant gratification by creating an example CFML app that demonstrates the functionality of OpenBD. How about a CFIMAP driven mail client? Or a simple S3 admin that leverages the File function enhancements?

• Popular Frameworks/Applications

  Which popular Frameworks and Applications do you use in CFML? Help us stay compatible with your favourites by testing the latest releases and participating in their mailing lists to ensure that it runs successfully on OpenBD and remains that way. Remember, if we don't know a problem exists, then we can't fix it.

• Testing

  Help us build a suite of unit tests that will help solidify our compatibility with the CFML language.

• Coding

  The majority of CFML developers aren't hardcore Java developers but those that are should find the OpenBD code isn't too hard to get familiar with. We welcome any patches to fix bugs or new feature implementations which will be valuable to the whole community.

The key thing to understand, is that you contribute in many ways, at all different levels.

So whatever you have time for, whatever interests you, there is a way to contribute. Just dive in :)