guide/CONTRIBUTING.md

# Contributions Welcome!

The maintainers of this Copyleft Guide project encourage contribution from
the community.  Part of the impetus for this project was to create a
community around a "copyleft codebase" for information about copyleft.  In
other words, this project is a tutorial project about Copyleft that is like a
Free Software project.

## Who Is In Charge?

Currently, [Bradley M. Kuhn](http://ebb.org/bkuhn/) is the editor-in-chief of
this Guide project.  However, many other contributors have given patches and
improvements to the text.  Review the
[commit log in the Git repository](https://gitorious.org/copyleft-org/tutorial/commits/master)
for more details on who has contributed to the project.

## How Do I Get Involved?

The Guide is maintained in a copylefted distributed version control system called
[Git](http://git-scm.com/).  Currently, the project utilizes the services of
a  Git hosting website called [Gitorious](https://gitorious.org). (The
software which runs Gitorious is, itself, copylefted, too.)

Those who are comfortable with Gitorious can submit
[merge requests on copyleft.org's gitorious site](https://gitorious.org/copyleft-org/tutorial/merge_requests).
See the section "Merge Request and Patch Workflow" below for more information
on the details of doing that.

However, the editor-in-chief do not want lack of Git and/or LaTeX knowledge
to create an entry barrier for potential contributors.  Therefore, the
editor-in-chief happily accepts contributions and ideas via the following
means:

  * Patches posted to
    [the mailing list](http://lists.copyleft.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss).

  * New sections of text or simply ideas and input emailed to
    [the mailing list](http://lists.copyleft.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss).

  * Ideas and suggestions mentioned on the
    [irc channel #copyleft on freenode](irc://irc.freenode.net/#copyleft).

Please, do not worry if your patches or new sections of text are not properly
formatted as patches and/or are not formatted in LaTeX properly.  Indeed,
feel free to offer patches that break LaTeX formatting.  If the content is
good, the editor-in-chief or someone else will format your contribution
properly for LaTeX.

Note: by submitting contributions via any of these means, you agree to the
"Author's Certificate of Origin" (see below).

## How Do I Figure Out What To Contribute?

If you're looking for something to fix, just grep the *.tex files for "FIXME"
and you'll find plenty.  Many of them are simple and easy to do.  Some of
them are writing, and some of them are formatting-related.

There is also a [TODO list on the website](https://copyleft.org/todo/), which
are mostly related to formatting, layout and infrastructure, but if you'd
like to help there, such help is also welcome.

## Merge Request and Patch Workflow

Currently, the main location for work on this project is Gitorious, and
active new development on the project happens on the 'next' branch.  Here is
a suggested workflow for submitting patches — first doing so *with*
the Gitorious infrastructure and second *avoiding* the Gitorious
infrastructure.