[FFmpeg-devel] Contributing to the project?

[Michael Niedermayer]

On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 04:26:49PM +0100, George Boyle wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I was wondering what is the best way to begin getting involved in
> contributing to ffmpeg/libav*? I've been a big fan of the project for
> years. I've been an observer on the mailing list, and have closely read
> the guidelines on the website, so I have a fair idea of how the
> development/review process works.
> 
> I am a software developer with 5 years experience, mostly in Java
> (specifically web services, REST APIs among other things), but I do have
> a reasonable knowledge of C as well. I have an interest in audio/video
> codecs and formats, but little expertise and no experience in that area.
> However, I am eager to work hard and learn quickly, with minimal
> disruption, on any task that might be suitable.
> 
> I don't want to be a burden on people's time, as I know everyone is busy
> and that you already engage in training and mentoring programs, but if
> there were some low priority tasks or tests to be written that would
> help me get my feet wet, I'd be very grateful to be pointed in that
> direction. Alternatively, if there are other channels I should engage
> with first, or upskilling I should do prior to contributing (e.g. a
> particular area of the code to study), advice to that effect would be
> very much appreciated too.

contributions in all areas are welcome!
if you want some random suggestion then for example
the file we use for testing FFmpeg with coverity should be extended
as coverity fails to find some memleaks
please see tools/coverity.c in FFmpeg git for the current file

the format of the file is documented at
https://scan.coverity.com/models

the file likely can also be extended in other ways to allow coverity
to find more issues.
But the memleak case is known as vittorio from libav told me that he
wrote such a modelling file to find the memleaks he fixed recently.
The libav coverity modeling file is non public though and yes i asked
vittorio to share it a while ago already.

Another area to work on would be to fix some tickets from
https://trac.ffmpeg.org
or implement feature requests
or to help review patches on the mailing list if you see something
that crosses an area you know (there are occasionally patches that
require expert knowledge outside multimedia as well ...)

But in the end, what i would suggest is, work on what is fun to you!

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

Old school: Use the lowest level language in which you can solve the problem
            conveniently.
New school: Use the highest level language in which the latest supercomputer
            can solve the problem without the user falling asleep waiting.
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