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How You Can Participate?
The Helix Community is a community of multimedia enthusiasts. Some of us are very actively involved in the day-to-day happenings in the Helix Community, some are quietly developing great new products based off the Helix DNA, some are trying to figure out what this community-process and open source is all about, and others are just plain passionate about multimedia.
There are many ways in which you can become involved in the Helix Community. There are multiple levels of involvement and we welcome everybody who wants to become involved at any/all levels. Even if you are not a programmer, there are ways that you can benefit from Helix DNA and ways to help make Helix DNA more useful to yourself and others.
Get Started...
- Be an Active Listener
You can find out what is going on in the Helix Community by reading the News pages and/or by subscribing to the various "***-announce" mailing-lists. These mailing lists are very low-traffic and are reserved for sending out alerts on issues of importance to interested members of the HelixCommunity.
Another good mailing list to subscribe to is the open-discuss mailing list, where we discuss the overall operation of the Helix Community, including process improvements, website enhancements, and other ways of helping the community work together more efficiently.
- Be an End-user
You can download the compiled version of the Helix Player and try it out, to see how it performs and works in your favorite environment with your favorite media. Additionally, pre-compiled binaries of Helix DNA Products: the Helix DNA Client, the Helix DNA Server and the Helix Producer can be found at the Downloads page. Try out these great products and let us know what you think about it through our Forums and Mailing lists or by joining our IRC channel.
Get Involved...
- Be a Tester
Anybody -- developers, testers or end users -- should feel free to alert the Helix community of issues encountered with the Helix DNA, or ideas for ways to make the Helix DNA better for you. If you have run into something you would like to report, you can use the Bugs page to report issues encountered using the Helix DNA products. You can use the Bugzilla page to understand how the Bug Submission process works. For a quick guide on how to file a bug, take a look at "How to file a good bug?"
- Be a Developer
You can download the Helix DNA source-code and build the various Helix DNA components by looking at the Helix DNA Quickstart Guide. This provides all the step-by-step details of how to get Helix DNA compiled and running on your platform.
It is also a good idea for all developers to subscribe to all the **-dev mailing lists, because this is the prime medium of communication for all Helix Developers. These are high-volume mailing lists and are deeply technical in nature, so feel free to post technical questions about development of the Helix DNA on these mailing lists.
You can also submit patches to the Helix DNA code-base and be recognized as a Helix Developer by following the Patch Submission Guidelines. If you want to develop a new feature on the Helix DNA Platform, you can submit a design document for review by using the Design Document Submission Guidelines.
If you'd like to learn more about becoming a Helix developer, check out Developer Information for Helix.
Get Going...
- Be a Policy-maker
We've evolved a number of policies over time to help manage the
swarm of activity around the Helix Community. Our goal has always been
to make policies that are simply, consistent, and that are easy to
understand. Learn more about the site policies. If
you want to influence the evolution of these policies, feel free to
post your thoughts, idea or questions to open-discuss@helixcommunity.org
- Be a Visionary
To figure out the roadmap for various Helix DNA components, you can visit the roadmap section. This provides some clarity about where the Helix Platform is headed and provides information on current project plans.
If you feel that Helix DNA does not meet your current needs and you would like to propose an extension to the Helix DNA, then please feel free to do so. Community members are encouraged to propose and develop new features within the Helix DNA. You can engage the Helix Community to get feedback about your feature proposals from qualified project-leads and also solicit other developers who might pitch in with resources to develop your proposed feature. Figure out how to do so by looking at the Design Document Submission Guidelines.
You can also create a proposal for extending the Helix platform, which, if approved, will also give you a workspace and assistance for adding in those capabilities. If this is of interest, read up on the Helix Community New Project Proposals.