Q. What can I contribute? A. Anything that provides you with any amount of difficulty is a great candidate for improvement and contribution. Think about the valuable contributions you can make to other people in your shoes. OpenEJB must be Functional, Useable and Understandable. Contributions in all of those areas are needed. FUNCTIONAL - The software must do what it was designed to do. It must be fast, reliable, and implement the EJB 2.0 spec and everything that entails. USEABLE - Even the most functional software is no good to anyone if it is too difficult to use. The easier it is to use OpenEJB the better. UNDERSTANDABLE - Anyone wishing to contribute functionality or provide one of OpenEJB’s pluggable services must first understand how everything works. 'Functional' contributions. Keep'em coming! ================================================================ Usually, the form of contribution most people find attractive is functional. This is definitely needed and appreciated. The OpenEJB teams is always hard at work to fulfill the EJB spec and the needs of the community. Contributions here are invaluable. But this is not the only invaluable way to contribute. 'Usable' and 'Understandable' contributions. More, More, More! ================================================================ Assuring that OpenEJB is usable and understandable is an enormous factor in the success of the project. The OpenEJB team has the advantage of understanding and knowing how to use the code it writes. This is also a disadvantage when trying to make things useable and understandable from the perspective of someone new to the project. Input and contributions in this area are extremely important. Considering the large number of people in the EJB and component-based software communities who are unfamiliar with what OpenEJB is, how it works, and how to use it, it becomes clear that there is enormous amounts of work to be done to help these people get on board. There are undoubtedly many things that could make the project and software easier to use and understand. I really consider anyone on the list now as pioneers. The effort you put into understanding and using OpenEJB will most definitely be repeated by someone else. If you can make the process a little easier, great! Anything you can contribute to make OpenEJB more understandable or useable is invaluable. In the end, these contributions are what grows the biggest community.