CONTRIBUTING

ABOUT ALLURA

Allura is an open source implementation of a software "forge", a
web-site that manages source code repositories, bug reports,
discussions, mailing lists, wiki pages, blogs and more for any
number of individual projects.

SourceForge.net is running an instance of Allura (aka New Forge, or
Forge 2.0); and Allura itself is a project managed there:

  <https://sourceforge.net/p/allura/>

The source for Allura is available there from a Git repo under the
Apache License, Version 2.0.

  <http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0>

Allura is written in Python and leverages a great many existing Python
packages (see requirements.txt and friends).  It comes with tests which
we run with nose (see <http://somethingaboutorange.com/mrl/projects/nose/1.0.0/>).
It is extensible in several ways, most importantly via the notion of
"tools" based on allura.Application; but also with themes,
authentication, and various other pluggable-APIs.

CONTRIBUTING

Allura is an effort _for_ the community: an open source platform for
sharing development.  We think it should be _of_ the community as well.
We want to encourage community involvement in development, testing and
design.  We do that with a public git repo, a bug tracker, a discussion
list and an IRC channel.


- REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs to our public tracker at:

  <http://sf.net/support>

Four things make for a good bug report:

  + it's not a duplicate of an existing bug

  + it has a clear description of what was expected vs. what actually
    happened and why what actually happened was wrong

  + it has a recipe as simple as possible to reproduce it

  + it describes the environment in which the bug happens, i.e., your
    os, browser, and browser version; or if you're running your own
    forge -- the relevant details of the host os and supporting tools

Other things that increase the value of a bug report but aren't always
possible or applicable:

  + screen shots

  + code (to be added to the automated tests) that tests for the problem

  + patches to fix the problem


- GETTING THE CODE

The code is self-hosted in a public git repository.  Get it by cloning:

  git clone git://git.code.sf.net/p/allura/git.git allura

You can also 'fork' our repo at <https://sourceforge.net/p/allura/git/>.

- CONTRIBUTING CODE

Develop and test your patches locally and then get them to us in one of
two ways:

  + use the git tools format-patch and send-email to send your patches
    to the mailing list

      <mailto:develop@discussion.allura.p.re.sf.net>

  + push your changes up to your 'forked' repo, and from there send us
    a merge request

Things your patch-sequence must have/do:

  + follow PEP-8 <http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/> coding
    guidelines

  + signify that you have full and clear rights to the code you are
    supplying and that you wish to share it under the terms of the
    Apache License Version 2.0 by using git commit --signoff

  + contain appropriate tests to be added to the automated testing
    machinery

  + pass existing tests (and/or fix existing tests that need to change)

  + be divided into an appropriate number of commits, one per reasonable
    "chunk" of functionality

Things your patch will have before it can be merged into branch 'dev' or
'master':

  + Discussion either on the mailing list or in the merge request, where
    you submitted it

  + Code-review (possibly many times as you re-work your patches in
    response to discussion)

Very small patches might not need much discussion.


- CONTRIBUTING TO THE DISCUSSION

We intend to develop "out in the open", which means having a public
discussion where we talk about new features, submitted patches, bugs,
direction, and deployment.  You can join in the discussion on the
mailing list:

  <mailto:develop@discussion.allura.p.re.sf.net>


- ASKING QUESTIONS

First, is your question already answered in the FAQ?

  <https://sourceforge.net/p/allura/wiki/FAQ/>

If not, then the right place to ask is either the mailing list (above)
or the IRC channel:

  <irc://irc.freenode.com:6667/#sourceforge>


- OUR DEVELOPMENT MODEL

Our model is a somewhat scaled-down version of how the Git project
itself is run.  We have two main branches

  + master: release quality

  + dev: integration branch for commits expected to go to master

  + feature branches not yet ready for integration testing, starting
    with the two character initials of the author, e.g., db/1368 for Dave
    Brondsema's work on bug [#1368] or wo/contributing for Wolf's work on
    the CONTRIBUTING doc

'master' and 'dev' are stable; they will never be rewound or rebased.
Feature branches are typically cut from 'dev', and usually rebased to
'dev' just before they are merged there.  In the meanwhile they may be
rebased or rewound as necessary.  Being on 'dev' is not a guarantee that
a commit will make it to master.  Anything that turns out to not
actually be ready will be reverted.

'dev' will always contain 'master'.  Emergency fixes may go directly to
'master' which would then immediately be merged down into 'dev'.

As we get more contributors and start having "patch-churn", we will
re-evaluate a three-branch model, like Git.  The third branch would be
'pu' (for "proposed update").

We expect that people deploying the code will deploy from 'master' or
from a release tag.  We expect that people experimenting with the code
will deploy from 'dev' or from their own feature branches or integration
branches cut from 'dev'.