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title: Information about sending patches for review
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Download Retroboot from the Git repository like so:

    git clone https://notabug.org/retroboot/retroboot.git

You can submit your patches via
[Notabug pull requests](#how-to-submit-your-patches-via-pull-requests).

Information about how the Retroboot project is governed is documented in our
[general management guidelines](management.md).

Retroboot development is done using the Git version control system.
Refer to the [official Git documentation](https://git-scm.com/doc) if you don't
know how to use Git.

Building Retroboot from source
------------------------------

Read the following article: [Building Retroboot from source](docs/git/)

How the build system works and how to maintain it
-------------------------------------------------

Read the following article: [Retroboot maintainance manual](docs/maintain/)

Do you have a coreboot-compatible system? If it's not supported in Retroboot,
you are welcome to add support to Retroboot. You basically need to:

* Add a coreboot config
* Specify what coreboot revision is to be used
* Include whatever custom patches you want (for that coreboot revision)
* Specify what payloads you want
* etc

All of this is completely automated. The guide linked above tells you how to
add and maintain boards in Retroboot. Retroboot is, in essence, an automated
build system that describes how to build various ROM images for whatever is in
the coreboot repository. Having individual board maintainers in Retroboot is
a high priority for Retroboot, so as to have greater hardware support with
regular testing.

Editing the website and documentation, wiki-style
-------------------------------------------------

The website and documentation is inside the `www` directory in the
[Git repository](#how-to-download-retroboot-from-the-git-repository), in
Pandoc flavoured Markdown. The website is generated into static HTML via Pandoc
with the following scripts in that directory:

- index.sh: generates the news feed (on the News section of the website)
- publish.sh: converts an .md file to an .html file
- Makefile: with calls to index.sh and publish.sh, compiles the entire
  Retroboot website

Use any standard text editor (e.g. Vim, Emacs, Nano, Gedit) to edit the files,
commit the changes and
[send patches](#how-to-submit-your-patches-via-pull-requests).

Optionally, you can install a web server (e.g. lighttpd, nginx) locally and
set the document root to the *www* directory in your local Git repository.
With this configuration, you can then generate your local version of the
website and view it by typing `localhost` in your browser's URL bar.

Privacy of contributors (you do not have to reveal your name or identity!)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contributions that you make are publicly recorded, in a Git repository which
everyone can access. This includes the name and email address of the
contributor.

In Git, for author name and email address, you do not have to use identifying
data. You can use Retroboot Contributor and your email address could be
specified as contributor@retroboot.org. You are permitted to do this, if
you wish to maintain privacy. We believe in privacy. If you choose to remain
anonymous, we will honour this.

Of course, you can use whichever name and/or email address you like.

For enhanced privacy, we recommend that you use a [trustworthy VPN
provider](https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/)
and route all of your traffic through Tor (on top of the VPN). The
[Tor website](https://torproject.org/) has instructions on it for routing
traffic through the Tor network.

Legally speaking, all copyright is automatic under the Berne Convention of
international copyright law. It does not matter which name, or indeed whether
you even declare a copyright (but we do require that certain copyright
licenses are used - read more about that on this same page).

If you use a different name and email address on your commits/patches, then you
should be fairly anonymous. Use
[git log](https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Basics-Viewing-the-Commit-History)
and [git show](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-show) to confirm that before you
push changes to a public Git repository.

General guidelines for submitting patches
-----------------------------------------

We require all patches to be submitted under a free license:
<https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html>.

- GNU General Public License v3 is highly recommended
- For documentation, we require GNU Free Documentation License v1.3 or higher

If submitting binary blobs, an exception is made if it's a type of blob that
Retroboot accepts (e.g. VGA ROM, CPU microcode updates). Retroboot will reject
*most* binary blobs, and *free software* is strongly preferred.

*Always* declare a license on your work! Not declaring a license means that
the default, restrictive copyright laws apply, which would make your work
non-free.

GNU+Linux is generally recommended as the OS of choice, for Retroboot
development.

General code review guidelines
------------------------------

Any member of the public can
[submit a patch](#how-to-submit-your-patches-via-pull-requests).
Members with push access must *never* push directly to the master branch;
issue a Pull Request, and wait for someone else to merge. Never merge your own
work!

Your patch will be reviewed for quality assurance, and merged if accepted.

How to download Retroboot from the Git repository
-------------------------------------------------

In your terminal:

    git clone https://notabug.org/retroboot/retroboot.git

A new directory named `retroboot` will have been created, containing
retroboot.

How to submit your patches (via pull requests)
----------------------------------------------

Make an account on <https://notabug.org/> and navigate (while logged in) to
<https://notabug.org/retroboot/retroboot>. Click *Fork* and in your account,
you will have your own repository of Retroboot. 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/retroboot/retroboot/pulls> and click
*New Pull Request*. 

You can submit your patches there. Alternative, you can log onto the Retroboot
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 Retroboot 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 #retroboot channel on Freenode.
