Developer Info

Contributions to the project are encouraged and welcome. If you'd like to contribute changes to LTIB, there a two primary ways:

• Via the mailing list
• By committing to CVS and uploading to the GPP

For people who just want to occasionally send a patch or a suggestion, the simplest way is to send a patch to the mailing list.

If you're a regular user of LTIB and you expect to have an ongoing need to make changes to the project it may be better to request CVS and GPP write access. For example if you maintain a target under config/platform/

Sending contributions to the mailing list

If you have a suggested change for LTIB, please join the mailing list (see sidebar). Once you're a member please send an email, this should include:

• A suitably descriptive subject line
• A description of what your change is and why it is needed
• A patch attached with your changes. This should be generated against the latest Savannah CVS sources using:
  cvs diff -u

Your suggestion will be looked at and if approved will be applied.

Getting CVS/GPP write permission

Before you are granted CVS/GPP write permission, you will be expected to have been visible on the mailing list first. This is my way of getting to know whether or not I can trust you to directly commit to CVS and upload to the GPP.

Once you have some history with the project you may request CVS/GPP write permissions. To do this, here's what you need to do:

CVS write access

• Get yourself an account on Savannah (hint, click on the New User link top-left).
• Next, go to Project Memberlist and click on the request for inclusion link. Alternatively you can send me an email via the list with your username and I can add you.
• Once I've accepted your request, you then need to upload an SSH key to Savannah. A guide to this is here . Note that I've found it can take an hour or so before these keys become active on Savannah.

Once your key has become active, you need to check-out a writable copy of LTIB from CVS. To do this run these commands, substituting for your username as appropriate:

$ export CVS_RSH=ssh
$ cvs -z3 -duser@cvs.savannah.nongnu.org:/sources/ltib co -P ltib

GPP upload access

In LTIB the package source tarballs and patches are deliberately kept separate from the tool. That means if you for example add a package to LTIB, you will need to upload the corresponding source tarball and any patches to the GPP. The GPP is just a simple public bulk HTTP server (a kind or 'mirror').

When you have been accepted for CVS write access, I will also generate a password for you to use to upload to the GPP. This password is keyed against your email address. Once you have this you can upload package content here

Rules and Guidelines

• If the change you intend to make only affects a platform you maintain then you may freely make changes as you wish.
• If any of your changes are to common areas, you should discuss your proposed changes on the mailing list first. If you don't and you are found to be careless or clumsy your write access may be revoked (this has never happenned so far).
• Anything you upload to the GPP must be legally freely distributable. This means you must know the origin of the file you are uploading and it must have a suitable open-source license. You must fill out the GPP upload form as fully as possible, pay particular care to:
  • Fill out the license field accurately.
  • Describe the origin of the file. Please cite download URLs or mailing list references. Please explicitly state whether or not there are modifications. If it is original work, please say so and say who is the copyright holder (if applicable).

Converted on Wed May 15 17:18:41 2013 UTC