src/CONTRIBUTING

   1 CONTRIBUTING TO EXIM
   2 ====================
   3
   4 Exim is an open-source project licensed under the GNU General Public License.
   5 At time of writing, all the developers work on Exim on a volunteer basis.
   6 We welcome patches and contributions.  There is no copyright assignment
   7 policy; if you offer a patch, it is assumed to be under the GPL, of whichever
   8 version the main developers see fit to use.
   9
  10 Mistakes or inadequacies in the documentation are treated as bugs.  The main
  11 documentation is called "The Exim Specification" for a reason.  So if you
  12 can't code there are still places where your help will be very appreciated.
  13
  14 General discussion, requests for help, and initial "is this a bug?" questions
  15 go to <exim-users@exim.org>.  Many suspected bugs turn out to not be bugs, so
  16 asking first is appreciated.
  17
  18 Our main website is at http://www.exim.org/ and contains links to our wiki,
  19 where many frequent setups are walked through.  You will also find our
  20 bug-tracking system linked there.
  21
  22 Development takes place in part on exim-users, when bugs or missing features
  23 are spotted based on feedback from people actually using the product.  In
  24 large part, discussion takes place on <exim-dev@exim.org>.  While you can use
  25 the bug-tracking system, everyone working on Exim, a mail transfer agent, is
  26 comfortable dealing with just email too, so you can use whichever you're most
  27 comfortable with.
  28
  29 If you have an idea for a new feature, please do raise it on exim-users first.
  30
  31 Our code is maintained in a Git repository.  The master repository, together
  32 with some others, can be found on http://git.exim.org/ and we welcome patches,
  33 whether of documentation or of code.  If you have a request for a new feature
  34 and can accompany it with working code, then it stands a much greater chance
  35 of being incorporated in a timely manner.
  36
  37 If you're planning on working on a major new feature or redesign, please do
  38 talk to us first.
  39
  40 We do not have a formal code-review process, but posted patches are subject to
  41 being reworked before being pulled in, or requests for modification made;
  42 we're a small enough pool of developers that we rely on the good judgement and
  43 discretion of the committer rather than formal process.
  44
  45 We prefer new features to be accompanied by documentation patches, but if no
  46 new documentation is provided, we can write it and, in the process, perhaps
  47 uncover issues to work over with you.  Note that the PDF form of the
  48 documentation is faster to build than the TXT form.
  49
  50 We do have a test harness and appreciate it if new features can be accompanied
  51 by new tests; if this is awkward for you, please do include sufficient
  52 description to allow someone else to write the test.
  53
  54
  55 -The Exim Maintainers
  56  July 7th, 2010