Lack of CONTRIBUTING.md

GDevelop general
1

I found that there is no CONTRIBUTING.md in the Github repo of GDevelop can I add it ?

2
  1. Why?
  2. Like in literally any GitHub if you want to do something just do a PR for it, if it’s rejected then no you can’t if it’s merged then good job you did it. No need for a forum post for that.
3

I am still new to this so I am sorry if I insulted you somehow lol I was just asking and yeah you’re right

not every repo has one of these but it explains for someone like me trying to help contributing with this open source how to do it, if you want a new feature, a bug fix, support, if you want us to start contributing by filing an issue or you ignore them so we should do a pull request first…etc. These will be the things you do.

It would be my 2nd time using forums and things like it
also I am new to Open Source contributing thing so I am just trying things

it’s so nice you replyed to me though thank you so much

4

Oh, I am sorry you felt like this. I didn’t meant to sound annoyed or something. Your question is legitimate and I answered with an answer and a question, I hope you didn’t see the numbering as a way to say I am insulted, I just use that to structure my answers instead of posting multiple posts. Normally, a CONTRIBUTING.md is used on repos with special rules about contributions, and here it’s just classical old GitHub contributions rules: you fork, clone, modify, push and PR, and potentially do modifications to the PR if 4ian (the repo owner) is not ok with something/spots a bug/the CI tests fails.

1 Like
5

Oh okay lol thank you. one more thing though I am trying to know more about contributing in Open Source software and things like that and I’m a game developer or at least I’m still learning.

what should I do to get accepted in GSoC for GDevelop it’s my first time and I really wanna work with Game Developers…

I know it’s basics stuff I may already know them too like:
1- solve a bug
2- look for the first good issues and ideas list
3- make a proposal about it for GSoC ofc

and that’s it but I mean what if I want more than GSoC like working with GDevelop team something like a trainging out of GSoC cuz it’s my first time and I started just a week ago learning about it anyways.

6

AFAIK Basically, you need to find some kind of huge feature (like you said there is an idea list but those are just ideas you can come up with your own too), make a kind of plan on how you want to do it (example for dynamic shadows →

  1. I will create a shadow behavior to add shadows to something
  2. I will make it so the behavior spawns a new renderer who will render the shadow
  3. I will declare the IDE GUI to let add a shadow map to the behavior properties
  4. I will add a component to the ide to let people test the shadow map by playing around with the cursor as the light and place some
  5. I will create a Light Source object
  6. I will integrate pixi-shadows with pixi-lights to actually render the shadows

), Then email an introduction of your idea with that plan to 4ian, and if he approves begin it when the summer of code begins.

Solving some basic bugs can help you already to become familiar with the codebase, but is not required.

GDevelop doesn’t have a proper official team. I guess any active contributor can be described as member of it? In that case the team would be 4ian (the project creator, owner and official maintainer), victor (haven’t seen him since a very long time I am not sure if he’s still around working on GDevelop but I cannot leave him out as he’s the most important contributor after 4ian), Blurymind and Bouh. I did some contributions but not enough yet to really tell I am a member of the GDevelop team. I am pretty familiar with the codebase so don’t hesitate to tag me in questions about it.

1 Like
7

This is what should be in the CONTRIBUTING.md …

8

I mean if you want you can PR this but IMO this is pretty clear/obvious/self-explanatory and don’t need to be said (there is no special rules; it’s like on any git repo). Those kind of files should be to explain special systems, here there is none.

9

Well, you are right, if someone want’s to write a contributing.md they can issue a PR and see if it get’s approved / merged.

10

I can understand that a CONTRIBUTING.md could help people to get started - making the project more inclusive.
I’m open to a PR for it, let’s just keep it simple (basically, a collection of links to existing README, maybe a GitHub page explaining PRs).

And above all, links to the roadmap or the existing issues.
Ideally a PR is the follow up of something that was discussed (roadmap, forum) or reported (forum, issue). I would not like to review PRs to say “ah actually it’s not something that we want” :slight_smile: