[latex3-commits] [LaTeX2e] 01/06: Add a basic CONTRIBUTING file

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commit 25eaeac038ac17d9c4c65c9d33c790ae3b5e7125
Author: Joseph Wright <joseph.wright at morningstar2.co.uk>
Date:   Thu Nov 2 17:26:41 2017 +0000

    Add a basic CONTRIBUTING file
---
 CONTRIBUTING.md |   74 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 74 insertions(+)

diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c07eb42
--- /dev/null
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -0,0 +1,74 @@
+Thanks for considering contributing to LaTeX2e: feedback, fixes and
+ideas are all useful. Here, we ([The LaTeX3
+Project](https://www.latex-project.org)) have collected together a few
+pointers to help things along.
+
+## Bugs
+
+There are thousands of packages and the LaTeX Project Team only supports
+a few dozen core packages beside the kernel code. So if a bug is due to
+code from a contributed third-party package the LaTeX Project Team is
+not able to help or fix the code as that is maintained by others. As
+such, we ask you follow the procedure below as it will help to weed
+cases where we cannot help.
+
+To report a bug it is important to provide a short test file that
+exhibits the issue. The [`latexbug`](https://github.com/latex3/latexbug)
+package should be loaded at the very top of any such test file used to
+report a bug in LaTeX as follows:
+
+    \RequirePackage{latexbug}    % <- first line
+    \documentclass{article}      % or some other class
+    ...                          % code showing the problem
+
+If the `latexbug` package is not part of your distribution you can
+download it
+[Github](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/latex3/latexbug/master/latexbug.sty).
+In that case simply place it in the directory next to your test file (or
+place it into your local `texmf` tree so that it will be always found –
+how to do that depends on the installation you use).
+
+If you think the bug is in core LaTeX (as maintained by the LaTeX Team)
+but `latexbug` complains about are needed to demonstrate the problem,
+then please continue and send the bug report to us but explain this
+explicitly in your description of bug.
+
+## Layout and interface deficiencies
+
+Upfront we should probably stress that 'deficiencies' in the design of
+of the standard document classes (`article`, `report` and `book`) as
+well a questionable but long established interface behavior of commands
+is something that we will normally not change, even if we can all agree
+that a different behavior or a different layout would have been a better
+choice. You are, of course, welcome to report issues in these areas,
+using the procedure explained below, but in all likelihood such reports
+will be marked as 'won't fix'.
+
+The reason is is that the kernel interfaces and the document classes
+have been used for many years in essentially all documents (even
+documents using different classes often build them upon the standard
+classes in the background) and thus such changes would break or as a
+minimum noticeably change nearly all existing documents. See also the
+file LaTeX2e News Issue 07 with regard to this policy.
+
+## Code contributions
+
+If you want to discuss a possible contribution before (or instead of)
+making a pull request, drop a line to
+[the team](mailto:latex-team at latex-project.org).
+
+The stability of LaTeX is very important and this means that change in
+the kernel is necessarily very conservative. It also means that a lot of
+discussion happens before any changes are made. If you do decide to post
+a pull request, please bear this in mind: we do appreciate ideas, but
+cannot always integrate them into the kernel.
+
+If you are submitting a pull request, notice that
+
+- The first line of commit messages should be a short summary (up to about
+  50 chars); leave a blank line then give more detail if required
+- We use Travis-CI for (light) testing so add `[ci skip]` to documentation-only
+  commit messages
+- We favour a single linear history so will rebase accepted pull requests
+- Where a commit fixes or closes an issue, please include this information
+  in the first line of the commit message [`(fixes #X)` or similar]

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