CONTRIBUTING.md revision 1.1 1 1.1 joerg # How to contribute #
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3 1.1 joerg We'd love to accept your patches and contributions to this project. There are
4 1.1 joerg a just a few small guidelines you need to follow.
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6 1.1 joerg
7 1.1 joerg ## Contributor License Agreement ##
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9 1.1 joerg Contributions to any Google project must be accompanied by a Contributor
10 1.1 joerg License Agreement. This is not a copyright **assignment**, it simply gives
11 1.1 joerg Google permission to use and redistribute your contributions as part of the
12 1.1 joerg project.
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14 1.1 joerg * If you are an individual writing original source code and you're sure you
15 1.1 joerg own the intellectual property, then you'll need to sign an [individual
16 1.1 joerg CLA][].
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18 1.1 joerg * If you work for a company that wants to allow you to contribute your work,
19 1.1 joerg then you'll need to sign a [corporate CLA][].
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21 1.1 joerg You generally only need to submit a CLA once, so if you've already submitted
22 1.1 joerg one (even if it was for a different project), you probably don't need to do it
23 1.1 joerg again.
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25 1.1 joerg [individual CLA]: https://developers.google.com/open-source/cla/individual
26 1.1 joerg [corporate CLA]: https://developers.google.com/open-source/cla/corporate
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28 1.1 joerg Once your CLA is submitted (or if you already submitted one for
29 1.1 joerg another Google project), make a commit adding yourself to the
30 1.1 joerg [AUTHORS][] and [CONTRIBUTORS][] files. This commit can be part
31 1.1 joerg of your first [pull request][].
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33 1.1 joerg [AUTHORS]: AUTHORS
34 1.1 joerg [CONTRIBUTORS]: CONTRIBUTORS
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36 1.1 joerg
37 1.1 joerg ## Submitting a patch ##
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39 1.1 joerg 1. It's generally best to start by opening a new issue describing the bug or
40 1.1 joerg feature you're intending to fix. Even if you think it's relatively minor,
41 1.1 joerg it's helpful to know what people are working on. Mention in the initial
42 1.1 joerg issue that you are planning to work on that bug or feature so that it can
43 1.1 joerg be assigned to you.
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45 1.1 joerg 1. Follow the normal process of [forking][] the project, and setup a new
46 1.1 joerg branch to work in. It's important that each group of changes be done in
47 1.1 joerg separate branches in order to ensure that a pull request only includes the
48 1.1 joerg commits related to that bug or feature.
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50 1.1 joerg 1. Do your best to have [well-formed commit messages][] for each change.
51 1.1 joerg This provides consistency throughout the project, and ensures that commit
52 1.1 joerg messages are able to be formatted properly by various git tools.
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54 1.1 joerg 1. Finally, push the commits to your fork and submit a [pull request][].
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56 1.1 joerg [forking]: https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo
57 1.1 joerg [well-formed commit messages]: http://tbaggery.com/2008/04/19/a-note-about-git-commit-messages.html
58 1.1 joerg [pull request]: https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request
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