Contributing

KDE Frequently Asked Questions
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# Chapter 16. Contributing

16.1. How can I contribute to KDE?
16.2. How do I commit a bug report?
16.3. I want to program for KDE. What should I do first?
16.4. How do I get access to the CVS?
16.5. I am just curious. Can I have read-only access to the CVS?
16.6. Are there any cvsup mirror sites for KDE?
16.7. How do I go about translating KDE programs into my native language?

16.1. How can I contribute to KDE?

KDE is a free software project that lives from voluntary contributions. Everybody is encouraged to contribute to KDE. Not only programmers are welcome. There are lots of ways in which you can help to improve KDE:

- Test the software.

- Send in bug reports. For more information on this, see How do I commit a bug report?.

- Write documentation or help files. You can get some information by visiting the KDE Editorial Team Home Page.

- Translate programs, documentation, and help files. For more information on this, you should visit The KDE Translators' and Documenters' Web Site.

- Draw nice icons or compose sound effects. You can visit the KDE artists page to find out more.

- Write articles and books about KDE. If you want to help spread the word about KDE, simply send an email to `<kde-pr@kde.org>`. This will get you in touch with the KDE public relations volunteers.

- Program new KDE applications. Please refer to Q: 16.3. for more information.

- Of course, sponsors are also welcome. :-)

There are several places to look for more information if you want to get involved in the development. The first step is to subscribe to some of the mailing lists. You will soon see something that can be improved or added.

16.2. How do I commit a bug report?

There is an automatic bug tracking system available at http://buglist.kde.org. The system features an entry form to commit new bug descriptions and a list of all known bugs. Please make sure to look through the buglist before committing a new bug.

If you are using KDE 2, the easiest way to commit a new bug if it has not already been reported is to select Help->Report Bug from the menu bar of the application with the bug. This will open a small dialog box where you enter the relevant information. Please be sure to include a complete report of what you were doing before the bug occurred, what happened after the bug occured, and whether this is a repeatable bug or not. Also, be sure to include important system information (e.g. operating system, X Window System™, and KDE versions).

16.3. I want to program for KDE. What should I do first?

Everybody is encouraged to develop software for KDE. What you should do first depends strongly on your experience, e.g. whether you have already learned C++ or have experience with the Qt™ toolkit and so on.

To get into KDE programming, you will need some basic tools: automake, autoconf, and egcs. You should look to http://developer.kde.org/ and http://www.ph.unimelb.edu.au/~ssk/kde/devel/ for more tips.

Another excellent resource for learning KDE programming is the Qt™ online tutorials. These are installed along with Qt™. To view them, open `$`QTDIR`/html/index.html` in KFM or Konqueror and bookmark it. The tutorials can be found under "Using Qt". The source code for each lesson can be found in the `$`QTDIR`/tutorial` directory.

There is, however, one thing that everybody interested in programming for KDE should do: subscribe to the developers mailing list. To subscribe, you have to send an email to kde-devel-request@kde.org with the subject `subscribe `your_email_address``.

| Please read How to subscribe/unsubscribe to these lists carefully. Everything said there applies to the development list as well.

16.4. How do I get access to the CVS?

The KDE project uses CVS to develop the core parts of the software. Usually, when you have changed one of the parts (e.g. fixed a bug), and you want to commit this change, the best way is to create a patch against a current snapshot and send this patch to the developer/maintainer of the respective program.

If you are doing this more or less regularly, you can ask Stephan Kulow for direct access to the CVS server. But be aware that more users will slow down CVS access for all developers, so we want to keep the number of people with direct CVS access reasonably small. But feel free to ask!

16.5. I am just curious. Can I have read-only access to the CVS?

Yes. It is possible to get read-only access to the CVS repository with the cvsup utility. You can find more information about how to set up cvsup for the KDE repository from How to use cvsup to get KDE.

In addition, anonymous CVS service is also available. To find out more about how to set up and use anonymous CVS, please see here.

16.6. Are there any cvsup mirror sites for KDE?

Yes. The main KDE server is normally very busy and unresponsive. Please take a look at http://www.kde.org/cvsupmirrors.html for the list of available mirrors.

Once you have selected a new cvsup server, simply replace

     *default host=cvs.kde.org

with

     *default host=cvsup.your.new.host

in your cvsup script.

16.7. How do I go about translating KDE programs into my native language?

Go poke around The KDE Translators' and Documenters' Web Site to see whether your program is already translated (most are). Otherwise you will find information there on how to do it yourself.

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