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title: Information about sending patches for review x-toc-enable: true ...
Useful information, related to Libreboot development, including links to the Git repositories where development is done. Libreboot development is discussed on the IRC channel.
Download Libreboot from the Git repository here:
git clone https://notabug.org/libreboot/libreboot.git
Editing the website and documentation, wiki-style
The entire website on libreboot.org, including all of the Libreboot documentation, is hosted in the Git repository. The pages are written in Markdown, which is an easy-to-use markup language similar to the one used when, for instance, editing pages on WikiPedia or a MediaWiki-based website.
Just download Libreboot's Git repository, make changes to the website under the www directory. Changes to the documentation section are made under the docs directory. Once you've made your changes, you can submit them for inclusion live on libreboot.org, using the instructions on the rest of this page.
You can use any standard text editor to edit and improve the entire Libreboot website. E.g. Vim, GNU Emacs, GNU Nano, Gedit or whatever you prefer to use.
We currently have a shortage of people who possess the skill to write and maintain good documentation for Libreboot, so we welcome any and all contributions!
The .md files are written in Pandoc flavoured Markdown. The following scripts form Libreboot's static site generator which converts the Markdown files into HTML, to create the website:
- index.sh: generates the news feed (on the News section of the website)
- publish.sh: converts an .md file to an .html file
- generate.sh: with calls to index.sh and publish.sh, compiles the entire Libreboot website
To view your local version of the website, it is advisable to install an HTTP
server (e.g. nginx, lighttpd) and configure it so that the www directory in
your local Git repository is the document root. With this, you can run
generate.sh and view your own version of the website locally. This can be
useful for larger changes (including structural) if you're making many large
improvements to the website. However, it is possible to just edit the Markdown
files with a text editor and submit those, or view individual .html files
(generated by publish.sh) in a Web browser (e.g. Firefox).
If you're running a local HTTP server, you can view your local version of the
site by typing localhost into your browser's URL bar.
At present, the site and documentation are optimized for use on the Web (as HTML, generated by Pandoc), but we would like to possibly support other use cases, such as PDF documents for printed manuals.
General guidelines for submitting patches
We require all patches to be submitted under a free license: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html.
You must declare copyright on your work, and declare a free license. Not declaring copyright, especially if you also don't declare a license, means that the default restrictive copyright laws apply under the Berne convention.
If you wish to submit work without copyright, or with permissive terms, then the Creative Commons Zero license is highly recommended. Otherwise, the GNU General Public License, version 3 or (at your option) any later version, is preferred; we will also accept any other free license.
We require all documentation and website changes to use the GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.3 or (at your option) any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; without Invariant sections, without front cover texts and without back cover texts.
Libreboot development is facilitated by git, a distributed version control system. You will need to install Git (most GNU+Linux distributions package it in their repositories).
GNU+Linux is generally recommended as the OS of choice, for Libreboot development.
General code review guidelines
Non-core members will push to their own repository, and issue a Pull Request. Core maintainers of Libreboot can push to the repository, but not to the master branch; they must push it to a non-master branch, and again issue a Pull Request.
An individual or group of people will then review the patch sent by the contributor. With approval from a core maintainer, or otherwise someone with merge rights on the repository, the patch will be merged into the official master branch.
Those with push/merge access on the official Libreboot repository must never directly push their own patches to the master branch, and they must never merge their own Pull Request. Regardless of the individual's standing and frequency of contributions within the project, those who decide whether to merge a patch will always differ from the original contributor.
These guidelines are enforced, to avoid the appearance of a BDFL (Benevolent Dictator for Life) in the Libreboot project, as one previously existed in the project. Libreboot is a collectively and democratically governed project. Maintainers who violate these guidelines may, at the discretion of other maintainers, have their push/merge rights revoked.
How to download Libreboot from the Git repository
In your terminal:
git clone https://notabug.org/libreboot/libreboot.git
A new directory named libreboot will have been created, containing libreboot.
How to submit your patches
Make an account on https://notabug.org/ and navigate (while logged in) to https://notabug.org/libreboot/libreboot. Click Fork and in your account, you will have your own repository of Libreboot. Clone your repository, make whatever changes you like to it and then push to your repository, in your account on NotABug.
Now, navigate to https://notabug.org/libreboot/libreboot/pulls and click New Pull Request.
You can submit your patches there. Alternative, you can log onto the Libreboot IRC channel and notify the channel of which patches you want reviewed, if you have your own Git repository with the patches.
Once you have issued a Pull Request, the Libreboot maintainers will be notified via email. If you do not receive a fast enough response from the project, then you could also notify the project via the #libreboot channel on Freenode.