CVS developer's policy

Background

With CVS, we can concurrently work on the code tree. Now it gets easy for an individual to solve a simple bug. No more annoyingly waiting for lazy me to accept your patch or take your hint -- just fix it right there. No longer will you have to tell me what I have to change for port FOO to work, and then wait for the next developer's release to see if I got your message; if you run this platform at home, you can change and test it yourself, all in real-time.

But such a powerful weapon needs to have a usage policy; without the right instructions, you can do the code a lot of harm. So please read this policy thoroughly before starting to use L.O.S.E.R. CVS. Thank you.

How to CVS

To get to know how CVS works, please read the Sourceforge documentation on this subject. This document doesn't cover this topic.

Working on tasks

Discuss what you plan to do on the mailinglist first. Maybe someone else is working on this too, or maybe your plans don't fit well with our plans and we need to work things out.

Moving/ adding/ deleting files/ directories

If you want to do any of these, please discuss it with the mailinglist first, for the following two reasons:

• These actions are maintenance actions, and should happen in accordance to the maintenance plans. Of course if you are appointed to some porting task, and you need to add a C file in your directory, well, be my guest. Just don't throw over the file structure just because you like it.
• There are some topics with moving directories in CVS and I still need to read the manuals :-D

Code credits

If you want credits for your code, you'll have to have the patience to do the following few things:

1. Update the copyright header on top of the .c (or .h, or other) files you have been working on. (If not already there, create the header!)
2. Add yourself to the AUTHORS file in the root directory.

The copyright header

The copyright header should look like this one:

/* nameoffile.c
 *
 * description of what the heck this file does and
 * of what program it is part, and stuff like that
 *
 * Copyright year, year nameofauthor1 <mail>
 *                      nameofauthor2 <mail>
 * Copyright year       nameofauthor3 <mail>
 */

By specifying of what program(s) this file is a part, you also agree that your code may be used under the license terms of that program. So if you're worried about the license under which your changes fall, please look that up. Also, if we ever think of relicensing our code, we can now easily see who we'll have to ask for permisson for which part of the program(s).

The AUTHORS entry

By specifying your name in each file that you have worked on, we can resolve copyright issues whenever they apply. But for a simple credit listing (e.g. in the game itself), we don't want to sort out all these names from all these files. Therefore, you should add yourself to the AUTHORS file.

This file should be formatted as follows:

Networking code:
   John Doe <the.man@thestreet.com>
   I. R. "Sniff" Baboon <baboon@r-u-talking2i-r.com>
Commodore-64 port:
   Giana Sisters <zaxxon@gcs.de>
   John Doe <the.man@thestreet.com>

Also note that you can put your nickname in double quotes between your first and last name(s). Please hold on to these formatting rules (name-of-project [enter] [three spaces] first name(s)"nick" last name(s) <e-mail>); maybe we want to be able to parse this file one day.

Data files (graphics, sounds, etc.)

Data files may be maintained outside of CVS in the future. This still needs to be worked out. Please don't change data files in CVS for now; instead show your data files on the mailing list (NOT attached plz %) so that we can decide upon using them in the next release.