code.delx.au - gnu-emacs/blob - etc/CONTRIBUTE

   1 Copyright (C) 2006-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   2 See end for license conditions.
   3
   4
   5                         Contributing to Emacs
   6
   7 Emacs is a collaborative project and we encourage contributions from
   8 anyone and everyone.  If you want to contribute in the way that will
   9 help us most, we recommend (1) fixing reported bugs and (2)
  10 implementing the feature ideas in etc/TODO.  However, if you think of
  11 new features to add, please suggest them too -- we might like your
  12 idea.  Porting to new platforms is also useful, when there is a new
  13 platform, but that is not common nowadays.
  14
  15 For documentation on how to develop Emacs changes, refer to the Emacs
  16 Manual and the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual (both included in the Emacs
  17 distribution).  The web pages in http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs
  18 contain additional information.
  19
  20 You may also want to submit your change so that can be considered for
  21 inclusion in a future version of Emacs (see below).
  22
  23 If you don't feel up to hacking Emacs, there are many other ways to
  24 help.  You can answer questions on the mailing lists, write
  25 documentation, find and report bugs, check if existing bug reports
  26 are fixed in newer versions of Emacs, contribute to the Emacs web
  27 pages, or develop a package that works with Emacs.
  28
  29 Here are some style and legal conventions for contributors to Emacs:
  30
  31
  32 * Coding Standards
  33
  34 Contributed code should follow the GNU Coding Standards.
  35
  36 If it doesn't, we'll need to find someone to fix the code before we
  37 can use it.
  38
  39 Emacs has certain additional style and coding conventions.
  40
  41 Ref: http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/
  42 Ref: GNU Coding Standards Info Manual
  43 Ref: The "Tips" Appendix in the Emacs Lisp Reference.
  44
  45
  46 * Copyright Assignment
  47
  48 The FSF (Free Software Foundation) is the copyright holder for GNU Emacs.
  49 The FSF is a nonprofit with a worldwide mission to promote computer
  50 user freedom and to defend the rights of all free software users.
  51 For general information, see the website http://www.fsf.org/ .
  52
  53 Generally speaking, for non-trivial contributions to GNU Emacs we
  54 require that the copyright be assigned to the FSF.  For the reasons
  55 behind this, see: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html .
  56
  57 Copyright assignment is a simple process.  If you live in the US, you
  58 can do it entirely electronically.  We can help you get started, and
  59 answer any questions you may have (or point you to the people with the
  60 answers), at the emacs-devel@gnu.org mailing list.
  61
  62 A copyright disclaimer is also a possibility, but we prefer an assignment.
  63 We can accept small changes (roughly, fewer than 15 lines) without
  64 an assignment.  This is a cumulative limit (e.g. three separate 5 line
  65 patches) over all your contributions.
  66
  67 * Getting the Source Code
  68
  69 The latest version of Emacs can be downloaded using Bazaar from the
  70 Savannah web site.  It is important to write your patch based on the
  71 latest version.  If you start from an older version, your patch may be
  72 outdated (so that maintainers will have a hard time applying it), or
  73 changes in Emacs may have made your patch unnecessary.
  74
  75 After you have downloaded the Bazaar source, you should read the file
  76 INSTALL.BZR for build instructions (they differ to some extent from a
  77 normal build).
  78
  79 Ref: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/emacs
  80
  81
  82 * Submitting Patches
  83
  84 Every patch must have several pieces of information before we
  85 can properly evaluate it.
  86
  87 When you have all these pieces, bundle them up in a mail message and
  88 send it to the developers.  Sending it to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
  89 (which is the bug/feature list) is recommended, because that list
  90 is coupled to a tracking system that makes it easier to locate patches.
  91 If your patch is not complete and you think it needs more discussion,
  92 you might want to send it to emacs-devel@gnu.org instead.  If you
  93 revise your patch, send it as a followup to the initial topic.
  94
  95 ** Description
  96
  97 For bug fixes, a description of the bug and how your patch fixes this
  98 bug.
  99
 100 For new features, a description of the feature and your implementation.
 101
 102 ** ChangeLog
 103
 104 A ChangeLog entry as plaintext (separate from the patch).
 105
 106 See the various ChangeLog files for format and content.  Note that,
 107 unlike some other projects, we do require ChangeLogs also for
 108 documentation, i.e. Texinfo files.
 109
 110 Ref: "Change Log Concepts" node of the GNU Coding Standards Info
 111 Manual, for how to write good log entries.
 112
 113 ** The patch itself.
 114
 115 Please use "Context Diff" format.
 116
 117 If you are accessing the Bazaar repository, make sure your copy is
 118 up-to-date (e.g. with `bzr pull'), then use
 119         bzr diff --no-aliases --diff-options=-cp
 120 Else, use
 121         diff -cp OLD NEW
 122
 123 If your version of diff does not support these options, then get the
 124 latest version of GNU Diff.
 125
 126 ** Mail format.
 127
 128 We prefer to get the patches as inline plain text.
 129
 130 Please be aware of line wrapping which will make the patch unreadable
 131 and useless for us.  To avoid that, you can use MIME attachments or,
 132 as a last resort, uuencoded gzipped text.
 133
 134 ** Please reread your patch before submitting it.
 135
 136 ** Do not mix changes.
 137
 138 If you send several unrelated changes together, we will ask you to
 139 separate them so we can consider each of the changes by itself.
 140
 141 ** Do not make formatting changes.
 142
 143 Making cosmetic formatting changes (indentation, etc) makes it harder
 144 to see what you have really changed.
 145
 146
 147 * Coding style and conventions.
 148
 149 ** Mandatory reading:
 150
 151 The "Tips and Conventions" Appendix of the Emacs Lisp Reference.
 152
 153 ** Avoid using `defadvice' or `eval-after-load' for Lisp code to be
 154 included in Emacs.
 155
 156 ** Remove all trailing whitespace in all source and text files.
 157
 158 ** Use ?\s instead of ?  in Lisp code for a space character.
 159
 160
 161 * Supplemental information for Emacs Developers.
 162
 163 ** Write access to the Emacs repository.
 164
 165 Once you become a frequent contributor to Emacs, we can consider
 166 giving you write access to the Bazaar repository.
 167
 168
 169 ** Emacs Mailing lists.
 170
 171 Discussion about Emacs development takes place on emacs-devel@gnu.org.
 172
 173 Bug reports and fixes, feature requests and implementations should be
 174 sent to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org, the bug/feature list.  This is coupled
 175 to the tracker at http://debbugs.gnu.org .
 176
 177 You can subscribe to the mailing lists, or see the list archives,
 178 by following links from http://savannah.gnu.org/mail/?group=emacs .
 179
 180 ** Document your changes.
 181
 182 Think carefully about whether your change requires updating the
 183 documentation.  If it does, you can either do this yourself or add an
 184 item to the NEWS file.
 185
 186 If you document your change in NEWS, please mark the NEWS entry with
 187 the documentation status of the change: if you submit the changes for
 188 the manuals, mark it with "+++"; if it doesn't need to be documented,
 189 mark it with "---"; if it needs to be documented, but you didn't
 190 submit documentation changes, leave the NEWS entry unmarked.  (These
 191 marks are checked by the Emacs maintainers to make sure every change
 192 was reflected in the manuals.)
 193
 194
 195 ** Understanding Emacs Internals.
 196
 197 The best way to understand Emacs Internals is to read the code,
 198 but the nodes "Tips" and "GNU Emacs Internals" in the Appendix
 199 of the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual may also help.
 200
 201 The file etc/DEBUG describes how to debug Emacs bugs.
 202
 203
 204 \f
 205 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
 206
 207 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 208 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 209 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 210 (at your option) any later version.
 211
 212 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 213 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 214 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 215 GNU General Public License for more details.
 216
 217 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 218 along with GNU Emacs.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
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