Contributing

Contributing to the .NET Micro Framework

While the .NET Micro Framework is sponsored by Microsoft Open Technologies it is an Open Source project and therefore we encourage and welcome contributions from the development community. As with any Open Source project - in order to avoid complete chaos and mass fragmentation, there are a few rules to follow.

Pre-requisites for Contributing

1. Sign a [Contribution License Agreement (CLA)](Contribution License Agreement) (One time activity)
2. Fork the repository into your own GitHub account as a public repository
   A public fork is required to process Pull Requests since a Pull Request is, in developer terms a pass by reference type. Thus, the GitHub system and any reviewers must have access to the forked repository in order to see the changes. Forking the repository is a simple click on the "Fork" button on the repositories page in GitHub.
3. Clone your GitHub repository to your local development machine

Basic Workflow for Contributions

1. Make changes in your local repository
2. Commit your changes to your local repository
3. Merge/synch your local repository to the public "Origin" NETMF repository
4. In your public forked repository create a Pull Request from the "Origin" NETMF repository to your repository
   This will bring any changes that have occurred in the Origin repository into your forked copy and you can resolve any merge issues here. As an alternative you can use command line or other GUI tools to achieve the same effect directly to your local repository. Ultimately the goal is to ensure that the pull request can be merged without any conflicts.
5. Fix any merge changes locally
6. Commit your merge changes
7. Push/Synch your local changes to your public repository
8. Create a Pull Request from your Forked GitHub repository to the "Origin" repository
9. Respond to review comments on your changes
   This may entail additional changes to your code with an update to the Pull Request.= in order to fix issues, meet guidelines etc...
10. Core Team member commits changes to origin repository Once the Pull Request is approved a core member of the team will apply the changes to the "Origin" repository so they are available for everyone to include.