Getting Started at OSGeo

If you're new to OSGeo, here are a few things that you can do to come up to speed quickly with the organization and start collaborating with others

Become a Member of OSGeo

Early in 2007 a new OSGeo Membership application will be released. When this is ready, you will able to sign up as an official member of the foundation.

All are welcome to participate regardless of membership status. You do not need to be a member to use email mailing lists, the wiki or to contribute to any projects.

Get Oriented - FAQ

Have a look the FAQ, and join the discuss list.

Add Yourself to the Member List

Introduce yourself on the Wiki and let people know what you're about, and what you're interested in. The best way to do this is to add yourself to the All Members list. Since you've read the FAQ, you know that everyone participating is a member, so adding yourself to the list is the first thing to do. To add yourself you simply edit the wiki. To do this, you will need a wiki account, which you can get by clicking the 'log in' button on the upper right hand corner of the wiki. For more information about using a wiki, see the Wiki Help.

Find a Project to Work On

The easiest place to start is the Volunteers Needed page, as projects will put up their requests based on what they're looking for. You also can email the discuss list directly to let people know what you're interested in and ask for pointers. You can click on any of the projects on the right side of this website.

You can also browse the mailing list archives, and join any of the mailing lists.

Join a Mailing List

For more information about mailing lists please see the Mailing List FAQ. This page outlines the primary lists for getting started. Some projects have several mailing lists, some intended for users and others for developers or simple announcements. Announce lists are gneerally low traffic.

Join a project mailing list and introduce yourself and ask where you can help out.

Hack on the Wiki

The wiki is where a lot of action takes place. Collaboration is much easier, so we start up new documents there, and transition them over to the primary site when we're happy with how they look and what they say. Documents on osgeo.org reflect OSGeo's positions, while on the wiki we work out what those positions are. You can find out where the action has been on the wiki by clicking on Recent Changes. Feel free to add new pages, propose new projects and ideas, and comment on or modify content that is under revision. If you are interested in being notified when new pages are posted in the wiki, subscribe to the RSS or Atom feeds.

Jump on IRC

Many of us hang out on irc, on the #osgeo channel at irc.freenode.net. Or in more verbose terms, on the osgeo channel of irc.freenode.net. There are a variety of IRC clients, if you're running firefox ChatZilla is very straightforward. There are many other good ones out there. With IRC you can informally get to know people, what they're working on, and what our current problems are.