Contributing
Planning and organization
If you believe you can give any contribution that can help advance the project, you are very welcome to participate.
Since the project is still in the early stages, we have no formal process for accepting submitted contributions, and no "jobs" or task assignement process.
There are 2 main areas where you can help: the firmware itself, and this web site.
Firmware
You are welcome to download the source code, and experiment with it.
The primary means to obtain the source, is via CVS. Follow the directions contained in the
HowtoCompile documentation for the server address and all the instructions you need to get started.
Should you encounter any problems, see the
Discussion page topic for places you can ask for help.
There is also a
Documentation area that contains a list of technical information you might find useful to undertand features of the player and/or the firmware.
When coding, please follow the style and conventions of the already existing files.
After you manage to get your modifications working in a way you deem right for submission to the codebase, you can follow any of the following routes (in order of preference):
- Subscribe yourself as a member developer (in the Sourceforge meaning of the term) and check-in your patch
directly via CVS.
SeanStarkey manages the Sourceforge project settings, so you should contact him for this.
Please follow this route only for substantial submissions, non-trivial bugfixes or the like.
Before asking for access, post a brief summary of the contents of your changes, though. It's more healthy for
everyone this way.
- Use the patch submission facility at Sourceforge.net :
Someone will step up and take care of integrating your patch into the codebase, or contacting you if there are
problems with it.
After submitting the patch, posting a message in the discussion mailing list telling us about it is appreciated. If no one looks at your patch of even aknowledges is existence, politely bitching about it in IRC and in
the mailing list is your best bet.
- Post the diff file to the discussion mailing list and someone will take care of it. (Everything in the option
above applies to this one too)
Web site
This web site exists as a collective effort, and everyone is welcome to contibute their content to it, if they think it can be useful to the project.
Behind the scenes, this runs on top of the TWiki.TWiki platform, which makes it quite easy for everyone to step in and add information.
If you are not familiar with Wiki software in general, think of it as a freely editable web site. Then read the
TWikiTutorial which will hopefully help you get started. Or confuse you even more.
While it's not a canned super-easy fool-proof kind of system, the learning curve is reasonably shallow. With a little bit of ingenuity and geekness you will surely figure out how it works (and you probably need both of these qualities anyway, if you plan to contribute here).
If you can't still figure it out, you can always drop by in IRC and ask questions and you'll likely get some help.
To get started you need to open an account by compiling the form at the
TWikiRegistration topic. Then you will see the site in full wiki mode and you will be able begin adding content or editing/annotating existing information.
Keep in mind that every change is logged internally so that we can A) go back to a previous versions if someone messes up and, most importantly, B) smite spammers and sabotagers with the hammer of divine retribution.
Other kinds of contribution
Suggestions, constructive criticism, cool ideas and whatever you think might advance our world domination agenda is warmly welcome. More seriously, we are open to all kind of input, so don't hesitate to get in touch with us and share your thoughts.
Just drop by in IRC or post your thoughts in the mailing list (see our
Discussion page for more on our communication channels)
Related topics
