How to contribute in a PEAR project, the positive way !
Greg Beaver have an interesting post about email he's receiving from people interested to contribute in PHPDocumentator or in PEAR. The question that many are asking is "how can I help?", which is a little obvious for developers already working on PEAR project or others : see the bug tracker ! The point is usually with PHP projects if you want to contribute, get the code, read the bug tracker, try to fix and submit your patch. Something simple, if you want to contribute in an open source project you don't need to ask for permission.
We have had many inquiries from people who wish to assist with developing phpDocumentor or with PEAR. For those of you have written, thank you. However, most requests are along the lines of "how can I help?" and typically do not continue when we answer. Unfortunately, I've taken to a rather nihilistic view of these inquiries. Interestingly enough, most people who do end up helping out skip the question "how can I help?" altogether!
