Revision as of 16:28, 22 January 2015

Work in progress. Until we say otherwise, assume that everything you read here is a lie. Except for all the stuff about how easy Oomph makes it to provision a development environment; that stuff is dead on.

A "Great Fix" is a contribution from a non-committer that provides a significant improvement in the Java development experience using Eclipse. Ultimately, the committers will decide what constitutes a "Great Fix", but special consideration will be given to performance or stability improvements, and patches that improve the user experience.

Who Can participate?

To qualify, you must be a contributor who is not a committer on the project that accepts the contribution. So, you can be an Eclipse committer on a different Eclipse project and qualify.

Prizes

• Winners will receive a state-of-the-art Android tablet (details pending);
• Runners up will receive an Eclipse t-shirt; and
• If your patch is accepted, you will receive a coupon for $100 off EclipseCon attendance

What is a Great Fix?

What constitutes a "Great Fix" varies considerably and is ultimately to the committers involved to decide. However, a "Great Fix" will generally have the following:

• A corresponding "Great Bug Report"
  • A bug report in the Eclipse Bugzilla instance;
  • Detailed discussion via bug comments;
  • Must be a fix, not a new feature or enhancement;
  • Marked fixed with the "greatfix" keyword.
• Code contribution via the mechanism described by the project (e.g. Gerrit)
  • Code conforms to the the style prescribed by the project; and
  • Includes updates and additions to unit tests.

The contribution must be accepted by a project committer and merged into the corresponding Git repository to qualify.

Timing

The programme runs in two-week cycles; we'll announce the winners at the end of each cycle.

1. February 2 - 20/2015
2. February 23 - March 12/2015 (EclipseCon)
3. March 16 - April 3/2015 (M6)
4. April 6 - April 24/2015
5. April 27 - May 8/2015 (M7)

To qualify, the bug record must be marked fixed with the "greatfix" keyword added before 900h ET of the announcement day.

Where do I start?

At the beginning of each cycle, we will select candidate bugs to seed the discussion. Contributors can select from these bugs, or from the larger pool of bugs.

Step One: Pick a bug

Here are some good places to look for candidates:

• Top twenty candidates (pending);
• Eclipse Platform 4.5 Planning Bugs
• "Help Wanted" bugs for the Platform, JDT, and PDE;
• "Help Wanted" bugs for the Web Tools "Common", EJB Tools, Java EE Tools, and Source Editing;

Step Two: Sort out how to contribute

All projects provide a contribution guide that can help you know what you need to do to ensure that your contribution is accepted.

• How to Contribute to the Platform UI Project
• You should find a contribution guide in the root of the Git repository

Use the Oomph Eclipse Installer to build your development environment and provision your workspace with the exact source code and workbench configuration you need to get started immediately.

Step Three: Connect with the team

• Discuss the bug via comments on the bug report
• Use the #eclipse IRC channel

Step Four: Contribute!

Push your fixes to the project's Gerrit repository.

Step Five: Reap the Rewards

Bask in the glory.