[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc."]]

[[!meta license="""[[!toggle id="license" text="GFDL 1.2+"]][[!toggleable
id="license" text="Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant
Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.  A copy of the license
is included in the section entitled
[[GNU Free Documentation License|/fdl]]."]]"""]]

The GNU Hurd community comprises of a crowd of people living in different areas
of the whole world.  For that, having regular working-[[meetings]] -- usually
one of the more productive ways of coordination works -- is not easily
possible.

The two key resources most often used for communication are the Debian and GNU
[[mailing lists]], as well as [[IRC]].

These are measures of communication that work (compared to, e.g., a one-to-one
telephone call) one-to-many.  It is important to not send email only to a
single person, but in a way that several people can see your questions and
reasonings.  (There are exceptions, of course.  Administrative stuff usually
need not be discussed in public.)  It often happens that -- if you send email
only to a single developer -- someone is unavailable for some days and can't
answer to your email, but another person could easily have done so.  Also, when
discussing matters in public, others can learn from it (while reading, or
eventually even taking part in the discussions), transform the results into
real documentation, etc.  Efficient using of scarce resources.  Start
discussions on public mailing lists/public IRC channels instead of sending
discussing with single developers.  And always use *reply to all* instead of
*reply* when answering to email.

If you're interested in keeping up with current events and taking part in
discussions, you'll want to join the [[mailing lists/bug-hurd]] mailing list or
have a look at its [archives](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/).

Even if you're a beginner (we've also been, and some of us even still
remember), don't hesitate to make the first move and make active use of these
resources.  But -- of course -- please try to adhere to the conventions as
described on the [[mailing lists]] and [[IRC]] pages.