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[bpt/guile.git] / HACKING
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JB
1Here are some guidelines for working on the Guile source tree at GNU.
2
3- As for any part of Project GNU, changes to Guile should follow the
4GNU coding standards. The standards are available via anonymous FTP
5from prep.ai.mit.edu; does anyone remember what the filename is?
6
7- Make sure your changes compile and work, at least on your own
8machine, before checking them into the main branch of the Guile
9repository. If you really need to check in untested changes, make a
10branch.
11
12- When you make a user-visible change (i.e. one that should be
13documented, and appear in NEWS, put an asterisk in column zero of the
14start of the ChangeLog entry, like so:
15
16Sat Aug 3 01:27:14 1996 Gary Houston <ghouston@actrix.gen.nz>
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18* * fports.c (scm_open_file): don't return #f, throw error.
19
20- Include each log entry in both the ChangeLog and in the CVS logs.
21If you're using Emacs, the pcl-cvs interface to CVS has features to
22make this easier; it checks the ChangeLog, and generates good default
23CVS log entries from that.
24
25- If you add or remove files, don't forget to update the 'dist-dir'
26target in the relevant Makefile.in files, so the snapshot and
27distribution processes will work.
28
29- Make sure you have papers from people before integrating their
30changes or contributions. This is very frustrating, but very
31important to do right. From maintain.texi, "Information for
32Maintainers of GNU Software":
33
34 When incorporating changes from other people, make sure to follow the
35 correct procedures. Doing this ensures that the FSF has the legal
36 right to distribute and defend GNU software.
37
38 For the sake of registering the copyright on later versions ofthe
39 software you need to keep track of each person who makes significant
40 changes. A change of ten lines or so, or a few such changes, in a
41 large program is not significant.
42
43 *Before* incorporating significant changes, make sure that the person
44 has signed copyright papers, and that the Free Software Foundation has
45 received them.
46
47If you receive contributions you want to use from someone, let me know
48and I'll take care of the administrivia. Put the contributions aside
49until we have the necessary papers.
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53Jim Blandy