HowToJoin

If you think that some package is missing in Sisyphus, or that some package deserves more attention; in short, if you want to give some love and effort to some package, it's time to join ALT Linux Team. What you have to do is:

Gather information
To join the team, you have to have the following pieces of information:
 * The mentor name. A mentor is an active Team member that wishes to help newcomers to apply for membership. You can find a mentor in a mailing list or at our IRC channel.
 * A nickname/username; you choose it yourself. Check that your username starts with a letter, contains only letters and digits, is not shorter than 3 characters, and, of course, does not coincide with another member's name (you can see the full list of Team members at sisyphus.org).
 * E-mail address where all your mail will be sent if it's sent to username@altlinux.org.
 * SSH key (RSA 2048bit or DSA 1024bit); you only have to send a public part to the application manager. You will use this key to access Sisyphus services (git.alt and others).
 * GPG key (DSA and ElGamal 1024bit); again, you have to provide a public part of the key, and save the private part with you. You will use this key to sign your packages and e-mail letters. It is a good idea to setup your e-mail client so that all mail originating from username@altlinux.org is signed, but this is not necessary. You shall send some letters signed when you need to identify yourself (e.g. when restoring an SSH key, or helping a colleague of yours to join the Team).

If you don't have an SSH and/or a GPG key, and never had them, please read some resources about working with your keys. For those in a real haste: treat these keys as your banking card data, they are no less sensitive. Store in a safe place, do not disclose passphrases, etc. (TODO: translate the article about Working with your security tokens)

Create a request
A join request is a "bug" in Bugzilla. These "bugs" are intended for a special person, the Team secretary.

The bug should:
 * be created on "Development"/"Team accounts" product, "join" component;
 * mention your username, forward address, and several words (a paragraph, no more) about your intentions concerned with Sisyphus &mdash; all this in the body (description) of the bug;
 * have the mentors e-mail in the Cc: line;
 * have public parts of your SSH and GPG keys as (separate!) attachments, with 'autodetect' type; your GPG public part should be exported for that (e.g., with gpg --export --armor &lt;id&rt; command).

Wait for a request to be processed
After all necessary information is obtained, the secretary checks your keys for correctness, creates an username@altlinux.org alias and grants you restricted access to git.alt. You are not allowed to build packages to any repository yet, but you can work with your git repositories now.

Please take into account that both the secretary and your mentor are volunteers and they not always have time to respond to you. Thank you for being patient during this time.

Learn to build packages for ALT Linux

 * After you're allowed to login to git.alt, your mentor helps you to learn building packages for ALT Linux. He/she gives you tasks, and gives necessary information to solve them
 * When the mentor is sure that you wield all necessary tools in a proper way, he/she notifies the secretary.
 * The secretary adds your GPG key to the alt-gpgkeys keychain and subscribes you to the mailing list.
 * Since this moment your mentor can send your packages (those that you made and signed) to the repository.
 * When the mentor is sure that you can collaborate on the package with other Team members (particularly, with him/herself), he/she notifies the secretary the second time.

Your mentor may or may have not enough time to answer questions quickly (e.g., because of the difference between your timezones). We recommend you to login to IRC channel #altlinux-devel and ask questions there; you may get an answer much quicker this way. Be prepared, however, that someone on the channel may criticize your git commits or point to other errors, sometimes in a harsh way. This is a window to the real world of ALT Linux developers team, and real people differ in their ways of expressing their opinions; still they are willing to help you.

Become the full member of ALT Linux Team
After the mentor notifies the secretary the second time, the secretary grants you the full Team member access. From now on, you can do all operations with your packages without a mentor. Happy hacking!