<h2>Intro</h2>
<p>This is a brief guide for anyone who is interested in helping improve Rubygame by contributing code changes — bug fixes, new features, etc.</p>
<h2>Finding Out What Needs To Be Done</h2>
<p>If you want to help out, but aren’t sure what needs to be done, you’ve got several options to choose from:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Check the list.</b> There’s a <a href="http://jacius.lighthouseapp.com/projects/12816-rubygame/tickets?q=state%3Aopen">list of open tickets</a> on Lighthouse. Pick one that seems within your abilities, and have at it.</li>
<li><b>Ask me.</b> Send me an email: jacius at gmail. I usually have a good idea of what needs to be done, even if I haven’t made tickets for it.</li>
<li><b>Scratch your itch.</b> If you have an idea of something that should be added, fixed, or improved… go for it!</li>
</ul>
<h2>The How-To’s</h2>
<p>If you want to contribute to Rubygame, the best way to do it is to create a fork, make a change, and send a pull request back to me. There’s a <a href="http://railsontherun.com/2008/3/3/how-to-use-github-and-submit-a-patch">pretty good tutorial at Rails on the Run</a> on how to do that.</p>
<p>Another, much less convenient way is to submit a patch on <a href="http://jacius.lighthouseapp.com/projects/12816-rubygame/overview">Rubygame @ Lighthouse</a>. Make a new ticket, describe your changes, and attach your patch(es). You’ll need to sign up for a Lighthouse account to do that, if you don’t have one already.</p>
<h2>Policy Stuff</h2>
<p>This is stuff you should do to make accepting your changes easier for me (and thus more likely that I’ll accept them):</p>
<ol>
<li><b>Use branches.</b> Make a branch for your changes, instead of working directly in ‘master’. This helps me keep track of which commits are relevant. One branch per logical change, please.</li>
<li><b>Spec it.</b> A change (feature, bugfix, whatever) that comes with specs is <strong>much</strong> nicer than a change without, even if the specs aren’t comprehensive.</li>
<li><b>Give yourself credit.</b> Add an entry to the <span class="caps">CREDITS</span> file with your name, email, date, and a brief summary of the change. Also, add your full, real name to the copyright notice for any files you make significant changes to, e.g. “Copyright © 2008 John Croisant, [Your Name]”.</li>
<li><b><span class="caps">LGPL</span> “v2.1 or later”.</b> All the source in Rubygame is licensed as <span class="caps">GNU</span> <span class="caps">LGPL</span> “version 2.1 or later”. If you add a new source file, it <em>must</em> be licensed under the same terms, or I simply will not accept it. Be sure to add the <span class="caps">LGPL</span> header to the top of the source file, using your name in the copyright section.</li>
</ol>
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