Mercurial > emacs
annotate CONTRIBUTE @ 75764:9511dc88835c
Add legal comment on copyright issue.
author | Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org> |
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date | Sat, 10 Feb 2007 22:34:45 +0000 |
parents | 68cfc1db0d26 |
children | 92a0e87ff562 |
rev | line source |
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Add copyright and permissions notices.
Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
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1 Copyright (C) 2006, 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. |
68cfc1db0d26
Add copyright and permissions notices.
Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
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2 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, |
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Add copyright and permissions notices.
Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
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3 are permitted provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved. |
68cfc1db0d26
Add copyright and permissions notices.
Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
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4 |
71604 | 5 |
6 Contributing to Emacs | |
7 | |
71619 | 8 Emacs is a collaborative project and we encourage contributions from |
9 anyone and everyone. If you want to contribute in the way that will | |
10 help us most, we recommend (1) fixing reported bugs and (2) | |
11 implementing the feature ideas in etc/TODO. However, if you think of | |
12 new features to add, please suggest them too -- we might like your | |
13 idea. Porting to new platforms is also useful, when there is a new | |
14 platform, but that is not common nowadays. | |
15 | |
16 For documentation on how to develop Emacs changes, refer to the Emacs | |
17 Manual and the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual (both included in the Emacs | |
18 distribution). The web pages in http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs | |
19 contain additional information. | |
71604 | 20 |
21 You may also want to submit your change so that can be considered for | |
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Nick Roberts <nickrob@snap.net.nz>
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22 inclusion in a future version of Emacs (see below). |
71604 | 23 |
71619 | 24 If you don't feel up to hacking Emacs, there are many other ways to |
25 help. You can answer questions on the mailing lists, write | |
26 documentation, find and report bugs, contribute to the Emacs web | |
27 pages, or develop a package that works with Emacs. | |
71604 | 28 |
71619 | 29 Here are some style and legal conventions for contributors to Emacs: |
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30 |
71604 | 31 |
71723 | 32 * Coding Standards |
33 | |
34 Contributed code should follow the GNU Coding Standard. | |
71604 | 35 |
71723 | 36 If it doesn't, we'll need to find someone to fix the code before we |
37 can use it. | |
71604 | 38 |
71723 | 39 Emacs has certain additional style and coding conventions. |
71604 | 40 |
71723 | 41 Ref: http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards_toc.html |
42 Ref: GNU Coding Standards Info Manual | |
43 Ref: The "Tips" Appendix in the Emacs Lisp Reference. | |
71604 | 44 |
45 | |
71723 | 46 * Copyright Assignment |
71604 | 47 |
71723 | 48 We can accept small changes without legal papers, and for medium-size |
49 changes a copyright disclaimer is ok too. To accept substantial | |
50 contributions from you, we need a copyright assignment form filled out | |
51 and filed with the FSF. | |
71604 | 52 |
71723 | 53 Contact us at emacs-devel@gnu.org to obtain the relevant forms. |
71604 | 54 |
55 | |
71723 | 56 * Getting the Source Code |
71604 | 57 |
71723 | 58 The latest version of Emacs can be downloaded using CVS or Arch from |
59 the Savannah web site. It is important to write your patch based on | |
60 this version; if you start from an older version, your patch may be | |
61 outdated when you write it, and maintainers will have hard time | |
62 applying it. | |
71657 | 63 |
71723 | 64 After you have downloaded the CVS source, you should read the file |
65 INSTALL.CVS for build instructions (they differ to some extent from a | |
66 normal build). | |
71657 | 67 |
71723 | 68 Ref: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/emacs |
71604 | 69 |
70 | |
71723 | 71 * Submitting Patches |
72 | |
73 Every patch must have several pieces of information before we | |
74 can properly evaluate it. | |
71604 | 75 |
71723 | 76 When you have all these pieces, bundle them up in a mail message and |
77 send it to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org or emacs-devel@gnu.org. | |
71604 | 78 |
71723 | 79 All subsequent discussion should also be sent to the mailing list. |
80 | |
81 ** Description | |
71604 | 82 |
71723 | 83 For bug fixes, a description of the bug and how your patch fixes this |
84 bug. | |
85 | |
86 For new features, a description of the feature and your | |
87 implementation. | |
71604 | 88 |
71723 | 89 ** ChangeLog |
90 | |
91 A ChangeLog entry as plaintext (separate from the patch). | |
92 | |
93 See the various ChangeLog files for format and content. Note that, | |
94 unlike some other projects, we do require ChangeLogs also for | |
95 documentation, i.e. Texinfo files. | |
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96 |
71723 | 97 Ref: "Change Log Concepts" node of the GNU Coding Standards Info |
98 Manual, for how to write good log entries. | |
99 | |
100 ** The patch itself. | |
101 | |
102 Please use "Context Diff" format. | |
71604 | 103 |
71723 | 104 If you are accessing the CVS repository use |
105 cvs update; cvs diff -cp | |
106 else, use | |
107 diff -cp OLD NEW | |
108 | |
109 If your version of diff does not support these options, then get the | |
110 latest version of GNU Diff. | |
71604 | 111 |
71723 | 112 ** Mail format. |
113 | |
114 We prefer to get the patches as inline plain text. | |
71604 | 115 |
71723 | 116 Please be aware of line wrapping which will make the patch unreadable |
117 and useless for us. To avoid that, you can use MIME attachments or, | |
118 as a last resort, uuencoded gzipped text. | |
119 | |
120 ** Please reread your patch before submitting it. | |
121 | |
122 ** Do not mix changes. | |
123 | |
124 If you send several unrelated changes together, we will ask you to | |
125 separate them so we can consider each of the changes by itself. | |
71604 | 126 |
127 | |
71723 | 128 * Coding style and conventions. |
129 | |
130 ** Mandatory reading: | |
131 | |
132 The "Tips and Conventions" Appendix of the Emacs Lisp Reference. | |
133 | |
134 ** Avoid using `defadvice' or `eval-after-load' for Lisp code to be | |
135 included in Emacs. | |
136 | |
137 ** Remove all trailing whitespace in all source and text files. | |
138 | |
139 ** Use ?\s instead of ? in Lisp code for a space character. | |
71619 | 140 |
71604 | 141 |
71723 | 142 * Supplemental information for Emacs Developers. |
143 | |
144 ** Write access to Emacs' CVS repository. | |
145 | |
146 Once you become a frequent contributor to Emacs, we can consider | |
147 giving you write access to the CVS repository. | |
148 | |
149 | |
150 ** Emacs Mailing lists. | |
151 | |
152 Discussion about Emacs development takes place on emacs-devel@gnu.org. | |
153 | |
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154 Bug reports for released versions are sent to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. |
71723 | 155 |
156 Bug reports for development versions are sent to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org. | |
157 | |
158 You can subscribe to the mailing lists at savannah.gnu.org/projects/emacs. | |
159 | |
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Replace emacs-bugs@gnu.org with bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org>
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160 You can find the mailing lists archives at lists.gnu.org or gmane.org. |
71657 | 161 |
71604 | 162 |
71723 | 163 ** Document your changes. |
71604 | 164 |
71723 | 165 Think carefully about whether your change requires updating the |
166 documentation. If it does, you can either do this yourself or add an | |
167 item to the NEWS file. | |
71657 | 168 |
71723 | 169 If you document your change in NEWS, please mark the NEWS entry with |
170 the documentation status of the change: if you submit the changes for | |
171 the manuals, mark it with "+++"; if it doesn't need to be documented, | |
172 mark it with "---"; if it needs to be documented, but you didn't | |
173 submit documentation changes, leave the NEWS entry unmarked. (These | |
174 marks are checked by the Emacs maintainers to make sure every change | |
175 was reflected in the manuals.) | |
71604 | 176 |
71723 | 177 |
178 ** Understanding Emacs Internals. | |
179 | |
180 The best way to understand Emacs Internals is to read the code, | |
181 but the nodes "Tips" and "GNU Emacs Internals" in the Appendix | |
182 of the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual may also help. | |
183 | |
184 The file etc/DEBUG describes how to debug Emacs bugs. | |
71604 | 185 |
71723 | 186 |
187 | |
188 * How to Maintain Copyright Years for GNU Emacs | |
189 | |
190 ** Our lawyer says it is ok if we add, to each file that has been in Emacs | |
191 since Emacs 21 came out in 2001, all the subsequent years. We don't | |
192 need to check whether *that file* was changed in those years. | |
193 It's sufficient that *Emacs* was changed in those years (and it was!). | |
194 | |
195 ** For those files that have been added since then, we should add | |
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Replace emacs-bugs@gnu.org with bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org>
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196 the year it was added to Emacs, and all subsequent years. |
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Slight formatting changes and typo fixes. Add description of NEWS markings.
Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
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197 |
71723 | 198 ** For the refcards under etc/, it's ok to simply use the latest year |
199 (typically in a `\def\year{YEAR}' expression) for the rendered copyright | |
200 notice, while maintaining the full list of years in the copyright notice | |
201 in the comments. | |
71604 | 202 |
71723 | 203 |
204 Local variables: | |
205 mode: outline | |
206 paragraph-separate: "[ ]*$" | |
207 end: | |
71604 | 208 |