guide/CONTRIBUTING.md
2014-12-20 19:31:56 -05:00

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# 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 committed to the project.
## How Do I Get Involved?
The Guide is maintained in a 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). 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.