SimGrid: Contributing to SimGrid

SimGrid 3.10 Versatile Simulation of Distributed Systems

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Contributing to SimGrid

We are sometimes asked by users how to give back to the project. Here are some ideas, but if you have new ones, feel free.

# Spread the word

There is many ways to help the SimGrid project. The first and most natural one is to use it for your research, and say so. Cite the SimGrid framework in your paper and discuss of its advantages with your colleagues to spread the word. When we ask for new fundings to sustain the project, the amount of publications enabled by SimGrid is always the first question that we get. The more you use the framework, the better for us.

We use several systems to detect the scientific publications citing our work, so actually citing correctly the framework (see here) should be enough to get us adding your paper to our list. But if you remark that your paper is missing on our page listing all papers using SimGrid, please say so. Likewise, if your paper is badly cited, please drop us an email so that we can fix it.

Also, help us constituting an active and welcoming user community. Get subscribed to the mailing lists, and answer the questions that newcommers have if you can. Point them (gentely ;) to the relevant part of the documentation on need, and help them becoming part of our community too.

Another easy way to help the project is to add a link to the SimGrid homepage on your homepage to improve SimGrid's ranking in the search engines. Internet visibility is a battle where you can make the difference. This can be done by adding the following html snipet to your page, that simply renders as Simgrid.

    <a href="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/"
       title="Versatile simulation of distributed systems: Grid Simulator, P2P simulator, MPI simulator, Cloud Simulator or HPC Simulator">
       Simgrid</a>

Or you can prefer this version with a little logo (if you want to contribute another logo for that, please don't hesitate ;)

    <a href="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/"
       title="Versatile simulation of distributed systems: Grid Simulator, P2P simulator, MPI simulator, Cloud Simulator or HPC Simulator">
       <img src="http://simgrid.gforge.inria.fr/logos/SIMGRID_Logo_Thumbs_up.png"
            alt="Versatile simulation of distributed systems: Grid Simulator, P2P simulator, MPI simulator, Cloud Simulator or HPC Simulator" align="center">
    </a>

Finally, if you organize a scientific event where you expect many potential users, invite us to give a tutorial on SimGrid. We found that 45 minutes to one hour is sufficient. It allows to explain the main motivations and outcomes of the project in order to motivate the attendees get more information on SimGrid, and eventually improve their scientific habits by using a sound simulation framework. Here is an example of such a presentation.

# Reporting (and fixing) any issue you find

Because of its size and complexity, SimGrid is not perfect and contains a large amount of glitches and issues. When you find one, don't assume that it's here because we don't care. It survived only because nobody told us. We unfortunately cannot endlessly review our large code and documentation base. So please, report any issue you find to us, be it a typo in the documentation, a paragraph that needs to be reworded, a bug in the code or any other problem. The best way to do so is to open a bug on our Bug Tracking System so that we don't forget about it (we have other obligations too and are sometimes unable to fix bugs right away, no matter how easy the fix it). The worst way to report such issue is to go through private emails. These are unreliable, and we are trying to develop SimGrid openly, so private discussions are to be avoided if possible.

If you can provide a patch fixing the issue you report, that's even better, and often ensures that it will get fixed very soon.

Of course, a very good way to give back to the SimGrid community is to triage and fix the bugs in the BTS. If you can come up with a patch fixing them, we will be more than happy to apply your changes so that the entier community enjoys them.

# Contributing features and associated tools

If you deeply miss a feature in the framework, you should consider implementing it yourself. That's free software, meaning that you are free to help yourself. Of course, we'll do our best to assist you in this task, so don't hesitate to contact us with your idea.

If you develop an independent tool that is somehow associated to SimGrid, we'd love helping you gaining visibility by listing it on our Contrib section.