I want to contribute to this software, How?

[Elias Maalouf]

Hi, I want to contribute to this software, the way it is built is perfect and everything but still needs a ton of work.

I am willing to employ at least 15 hours a month on the platform providing feature upgrades and bug fixes

Let me know how we can do that

Best,

Elias,

[Dominic König]

Hi Elias--

you will have noticed that the project is hosted on GitHub. So the way this
works is like this:

You fork the project on GitHub, and make any changes you think are necessary
or useful in your own repository.

Then, once you're satisfied with your version of the code, you propose your
changes to be merged into the main project repository (trunk) - by sending so-
called "pull requests".

We will then review your changes and decide whether to merge them into trunk
or not. Chances are usually good if you follow our coding guidelines, and if
you explain why you made these changes.

For bigger sets of modifications, it is useful to discuss them upfront here on
the mailing list - both to reach consensus about the why and how, and to get
some guidance. For smaller modifications, however, it's good enough to just
send a pull request.

---

We do not usually specify or assign tasks - you need to find work yourself.
There are some GitHub issues you can look at, and you may find TODOs in
comments in the code - but that's basically it.

Neither do we assign maintainers to specific parts of the code - it is rather
that we have a kind of leadership for general concepts (Fran, for instance,
leads on GIS/Mapping). Concept leaders have an informal power to veto
modifications that violate conceptual integrity, but at the same time they
also have an (equally informal) duty to provide guidance with respect to the
concepts they lead on.

Developer documentation is sparse. The best strategy to learn about the code
is to read the code - not only are many pieces self-explaining, there also is
an abundance of comments clarifying intentions and concepts.

---

General advice:

The best way to contribute to Sahana Eden is to find yourself a real-world
case, and deploy and adapt the software for that particular case. Talk to end-
users, find out what they want/need, and then solve that.

Then, generalize whatever changes you needed to make to the core, so that they
appear re-usable for other use-cases - and propose them (piecemeal) for merge
into trunk.

---

That's basically how it works.

Dominic