Contributing to Emacs
-Emacs is a collaborative project and one which wants to encourage new
-development. You may wish to fix Emacs bugs, improve testing, port
-Emacs to a new platform, update documentation, add new Emacs features,
-and the like. To help with this, there is a lot of documentation
-available. In addition to the user guide and Lisp Reference Manual in
-the Emacs distribution, the Emacs web pages also contain much
-information.
+Emacs is a collaborative project and we encourage contributions from
+anyone and everyone. If you want to contribute in the way that will
+help us most, we recommend (1) fixing reported bugs and (2)
+implementing the feature ideas in etc/TODO. However, if you think of
+new features to add, please suggest them too -- we might like your
+idea. Porting to new platforms is also useful, when there is a new
+platform, but that is not common nowadays.
+
+For documentation on how to develop Emacs changes, refer to the Emacs
+Manual and the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual (both included in the Emacs
+distribution). The web pages in http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs
+contain additional information.
You may also want to submit your change so that can be considered for
-conclusion in a future version of Emacs (see below).
+inclusion in a future version of Emacs (see below).
-If you don't feel up to hacking Emacs, there are still plenty of ways to
-help! You can answer questions on the mailing lists, write
-documentation, find bugs, create a Emacs related website (contribute to
-the official Emacs web site), or create a Emacs related software
-package. We welcome all of the above and feel free to ask on the Emacs
-mailing lists if you are looking for feedback or for people to review a
-work in progress.
+If you don't feel up to hacking Emacs, there are many other ways to
+help. You can answer questions on the mailing lists, write
+documentation, find and report bugs, contribute to the Emacs web
+pages, or develop a package that works with Emacs.
-Ref: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
+Here are some style and legal conventions for contributors to Emacs:
-Finally, there are certain legal requirements and style issues which
-all contributors need to be aware of.
-o Coding Standards
+* Coding Standards
- All contributions must conform to the GNU Coding Standard.
- Submissions which do not conform to the standards will be
- returned with a request to reformat the changes.
+Contributed code should follow the GNU Coding Standard.
- Emacs has certain additional coding requirements.
+If it doesn't, we'll need to find someone to fix the code before we
+can use it.
- Ref: http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards_toc.html
+Emacs has certain additional style and coding conventions.
+Ref: http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards_toc.html
+Ref: GNU Coding Standards Info Manual
+Ref: The "Tips" Appendix in the Emacs Lisp Reference.
-o Copyright Assignment
- Before we can accept code contributions from you, we need a
- copyright assignment form filled out and filed with the FSF.
+* Copyright Assignment
- See some documentation by the FSF for details and contact us
- via the Emacs mailing list to obtain the relevant
- forms.
+We can accept small changes without legal papers, and for medium-size
+changes a copyright disclaimer is ok too. To accept substantial
+contributions from you, we need a copyright assignment form filled out
+and filed with the FSF.
- Small changes can be accepted without a copyright assignment
- form on file.
+Contact us at emacs-devel@gnu.org to obtain the relevant forms.
- Ref: http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain.html#SEC6
+* Getting the Source Code
-o Getting the Source Code
+The latest version of Emacs can be downloaded using CVS or Arch from
+the Savannah web site. It is important to write your patch based on
+this version; if you start from an older version, your patch may be
+outdated when you write it, and maintainers will have hard time
+applying it.
- The latest version of Emacs can be downloaded using CVS or Arch
- from the Savannah web site. It is important that you submit
- your patch using this version, as any bug in a released version
- of Emacs may already be fixed. It also makes it easier for
- others to test your patch,
-
- Ref: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/emacs
+After you have downloaded the CVS source, you should read the file
+INSTALL.CVS for build instructions (they differ to some extent from a
+normal build).
+Ref: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/emacs
-o Submitting Patches
- Every patch must have several pieces of information before we
- can properly evaluate it.
+* Submitting Patches
- For bug fixes, a description of the bug and how your patch fixes
- this bug.
+Every patch must have several pieces of information before we
+can properly evaluate it.
- For new features, a description of the feature and your
- implementation.
+When you have all these pieces, bundle them up in a mail message and
+send it to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org or emacs-devel@gnu.org.
- A ChangeLog entry as plaintext (separate from the patch); see
- the various ChangeLog files for format and content. Note that,
- unlike some other projects, we do require ChangeLogs also for
- documentation (i.e., .texi files).
+All subsequent discussion should also be sent to the mailing list.
- The patch itself. If you are accessing the CVS repository use
- "cvs update; cvs diff -cp"; else, use "diff -cp OLD NEW" or
- "diff -up OLD NEW". If your version of diff does not support
- these options, then get the latest version of GNU diff.
+** Description
- We accept patches as plain text (preferred for the compilers
- themselves), MIME attachments (preferred for the web pages),
- or as uuencoded gzipped text.
+For bug fixes, a description of the bug and how your patch fixes this
+bug.
- When you have all these pieces, bundle them up in a mail message
- and send it to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org or emacs-devel@gnu.org.
- All patches and related discussion should be sent to the
- emacs-pretest-bug mailinglist.
+For new features, a description of the feature and your
+implementation.
+** ChangeLog
-o Please read your patch before submitting it.
+A ChangeLog entry as plaintext (separate from the patch).
- A patch containing several unrelated changes or
- arbitrary reformats will be returned with a request
- to re-formatting / split it.
-
+See the various ChangeLog files for format and content. Note that,
+unlike some other projects, we do require ChangeLogs also for
+documentation, i.e. Texinfo files.
-o Supplemental information for Emacs Developers:
+Ref: "Change Log Concepts" node of the GNU Coding Standards Info
+Manual, for how to write good log entries.
- If you wish to contribute to Emacs on a regular basis then
- you may be given write access to the CVS repository.
-
- Discussion about Emacs development takes place on
- emacs-devel@gnu.org.
+** The patch itself.
- Think carefully about whether your change requires updating the
- documentation. If it does, you can either do this yourself or
- add an item to the NEWS file.
+Please use "Context Diff" format.
- The best way to understand Emacs Internals is to read the code
- but there is also a node "GNU Emacs Internals" in the Appendix
- of the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual that may help.
+If you are accessing the CVS repository use
+ cvs update; cvs diff -cp
+else, use
+ diff -cp OLD NEW
- The file DEBUG describes how to debug Emacs.
+If your version of diff does not support these options, then get the
+latest version of GNU Diff.
+
+** Mail format.
+
+We prefer to get the patches as inline plain text.
+
+Please be aware of line wrapping which will make the patch unreadable
+and useless for us. To avoid that, you can use MIME attachments or,
+as a last resort, uuencoded gzipped text.
+
+** Please reread your patch before submitting it.
+
+** Do not mix changes.
+
+If you send several unrelated changes together, we will ask you to
+separate them so we can consider each of the changes by itself.
+
+
+* Coding style and conventions.
+
+** Mandatory reading:
+
+The "Tips and Conventions" Appendix of the Emacs Lisp Reference.
+
+** Avoid using `defadvice' or `eval-after-load' for Lisp code to be
+included in Emacs.
+
+** Remove all trailing whitespace in all source and text files.
+
+** Use ?\s instead of ? in Lisp code for a space character.
+
+
+* Supplemental information for Emacs Developers.
+
+** Write access to Emacs' CVS repository.
+
+Once you become a frequent contributor to Emacs, we can consider
+giving you write access to the CVS repository.
+
+
+** Emacs Mailing lists.
+
+Discussion about Emacs development takes place on emacs-devel@gnu.org.
+
+Bug reports for released versions are sent to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
+
+Bug reports for development versions are sent to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org.
+
+You can subscribe to the mailing lists at savannah.gnu.org/projects/emacs.
+
+You can find the mailing lists archives at lists.gnu.org or gmane.org.
+
+
+** Document your changes.
+
+Think carefully about whether your change requires updating the
+documentation. If it does, you can either do this yourself or add an
+item to the NEWS file.
+
+If you document your change in NEWS, please mark the NEWS entry with
+the documentation status of the change: if you submit the changes for
+the manuals, mark it with "+++"; if it doesn't need to be documented,
+mark it with "---"; if it needs to be documented, but you didn't
+submit documentation changes, leave the NEWS entry unmarked. (These
+marks are checked by the Emacs maintainers to make sure every change
+was reflected in the manuals.)
+
+
+** Understanding Emacs Internals.
+
+The best way to understand Emacs Internals is to read the code,
+but the nodes "Tips" and "GNU Emacs Internals" in the Appendix
+of the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual may also help.
+
+The file etc/DEBUG describes how to debug Emacs bugs.
+
+
+
+* How to Maintain Copyright Years for GNU Emacs
+
+** Our lawyer says it is ok if we add, to each file that has been in Emacs
+since Emacs 21 came out in 2001, all the subsequent years. We don't
+need to check whether *that file* was changed in those years.
+It's sufficient that *Emacs* was changed in those years (and it was!).
+
+** For those files that have been added since then, we should add
+the year it was added to Emacs, and all subsequent years.
+
+** For the refcards under etc/, it's ok to simply use the latest year
+(typically in a `\def\year{YEAR}' expression) for the rendered copyright
+notice, while maintaining the full list of years in the copyright notice
+in the comments.
+
+\f
+Local variables:
+mode: outline
+paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
+end:
- Avoid using `defadvice' or `eval-after-load' for lisp
- code to be included in Emacs.