So, you are interested in contributing to the GNU Hurd project?
Welcome! Every single contribution is very much encouraged!
There are various ways of contributing, read on about contributing to...
If someone of you is lurking around here and would like to contribute, but feels she / he could do so better under formal mentoring: please speak up at one of the regular IRC meetings!
Generally we also have a list of open issues and one for project ideas - the latter written for the Google Summer of Code.
Documentation
These Web Pages
Please read about how to contribute to these web pages.
The System Itself
There are essential two kinds of Hurd system designs.
Hurd on Mach
For one there's the implementation of the Hurd running on the GNU Mach microkernel. This is what is commonly meant when people are talking about GNU/Hurd systems.
This system has mostly been designed and implemented in the '90s. It works and is usable. For example, these web pages are rendered on a GNU/Hurd system.
You can try it out for yourself: for getting access, installing Debian GNU/Hurd will probably be the easiest and most feature-complete solution. If you don't have spare hardware to use for doing so, you can also get a shell account on a public Hurd machine. Depending on the things you're going to work on (and on your internet connection), this may be an easy way of getting used to Hurd systems. Installing in a virtual machine is another possibility, see the page about running a Hurd system for the full story.
Then you can either play around and eventually strive to do something useful or -- if you want -- ask us to assign something to you, depending on the skills you have and the resources you intend to invest.
Please spend some time with thinking about the items in this questionnaire.
Before you can significantly contribute, take some time to learn about the system, e.g., microkernels for beginners. Until you can do the basic exercises listed there, you won't be able to significantly contribute to the Hurd.
For more reading resources, please see these web pages, for example, Hurd documentation and Mach documentation for links to a bunch of documents.
Porting Packages
Debian is currently the Hurd distribution of choice among Hurd users and developers.
Here is a list of Debian packages that need porting.
You can also just install Debian GNU/Hurd and find what doesn't work or suit you and try to improve that.
Open Issues
Here is a list of open issues.
Hurd on a modern microkernel
Developers have identified a number of problem with the Hurd on Mach system. Problems, that can not easily be fixed by bug-fixing the existing code base, but which require design changes -- deep going ones actually.
As such systems (as the desired one) are not in common use, but are -- if at all -- research projects, this new Hurd on a modern microkernel project itself is more a research project than a sit down and implement/code/hack project.
If you're interested in contributing in this area, knowing the Hurd on Mach system nevertheless is a prerequisite. At least have a deep look at the documentation pointers given in the previous section. Also read through the HurdNG section.
Please send email to the l4-hurd mailing list for discussing this post-Mach system design.