Want to Contribute? Here's How...
So, you've seen MODx Revolution RC, and are itching to get in on the development towards GA. But, to your dismay, you're confused on how to start that process. This article will help you get to your level of commitment in development - be it an active coder or simply a tester who submits patches.
The Resources
MODx has moved to an Atlassian-driven development environment, comprised of Jira, Fisheye/Crucible, and Confluence. All resources use an SSO-driven authentication interface, so no need for multiple logins. For now, you only need 2 - one for the Atlassian apps, and the other for the MODx forums. (And we're working on getting the forums to SSO!)
- JIRA - MODx's new bugtracker. It combines detailed tracking with Fisheye SVN integration. All new bugs will be submitted via JIRA.
- Fisheye/Crucible - This is a detailed SVN reporting and reviewing interface that allows for peer reviews of committed code.
- Confluence - The new wiki for MODx.
But how do I get a sign-on?
Simple. Just register for a modxcms.com SSO (single-sign on) login and you're there! You'll instantly have access to Jira and Fisheye, and be able to submit bugs and review recent commits. MODx team administrators will then grant you access according to team needs, and you'll be able to quickly start submitting Jira patches and more!
If you want to contribute to Confluence, the official documentation wiki, work on bugs, or actually commit some code, the first step is to fill out and send in a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) right after creating a JIRA account. A CLA protects your contributions, but also gives MODx and it's user base clear permission to use those contributions any way that is compliant with the MODx license (GPL), and it's based on—more like copied directly from—the same one used by Apache and the Dojo Foundation.
I've submitted my CLA, now what? I want to commit!
We applaud your eagerness. Honestly, no joke, we do. MODx needs eager developers. However, there is a level of relationship that we like to develop with people before they become core devs. You've got access to Jira now, and probably have noticed some bugs or have some feature requests. So use it! Submit those bugs and ideas to Jira, and include in Jira patches for them. Please, no political jokes hidden in the comments. Really.
You can submit a patch by using Subversion (SVN). For the current time, MODx is on SVN for development, although this will soon be moving to Git. Simply checkout MODx Revolution and start working on your patch. Then, you can use SVN's "Create Patch" to create the patch and submit it to JIRA.
After an unspecified, arbitrary amount of time (usually decided by a game of Risk in which one of us usually ends up regretting taking over Australia after they skipped Africa, and ends the game by throwing the board at the others while yelling Orwellian quotations) the core dev team will then approach you with SVN commit privileges. From there you'll be able to submit commits just like the rest of the team, and have those commits reviewed by fellow team members in Crucible. Don't worry if your first Crucible review is scathing - we usually do that to the newbies. At least we don't do the glue-on-the-keyboard initiation anymore (darn lawyers).
My patch was rejected! What?!
Every so once in a while, a patch submitted doesn't make it into the core. It's not because we don't like you. In all honesty, Jason loves darts, and before each patch approval he staples them to the wall and we choose the one he hits while blindfolded. (Okay, so that's not true. He's not blindfolded.)
Sometimes a patch you submit wont make it in. That may be for a myriad of reasons:
- The patch wasn't a part of the Core Design Philosophy
- We decided to move the feature request to a component rather than the core
- Someone else provided a more elegant patch
- The patch caused too many other issues to arise
- The patch was submitted in lolcode, which although we had a hoot reading, was pretty useless in the end
So don't take offense. We really appreciate any and all contributions to MODx, and we seriously consider everything that this wonderful community gives to it. MODx has thrived because of this community. However, some things just wont match with the MODx vision and design philosophy; so be patient with us, and know we really like people who submit patches. A ton. Did we mention we really like patch submitters?
