Everyone is welcome to contribute to the Matrix specification!
Please ensure that you sign off your contributions. See Sign off below.
The documentation style is described at https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/blob/master/meta/documentation_style.rst.
Python code within the matrix-doc project should follow the same style as
synapse, which is documented at
https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/tree/master/docs/code_style.rst.
The Matrix specification documents the APIs which Matrix clients and servers use. For this to be effective, the APIs need to be present and working correctly in a server before they can be documented in the specification. This process can take some time to complete.
For this reason, we have not found the github pull-request model effective for discussing changes to the specification. Instead, we have adopted the workflow as described at https://matrix.org/docs/spec/proposals - please read this for details on how to contribute spec changes.
The above process is unnecessary for smaller changes, and those which do not put new requirements on servers. This category of changes includes the following:
Changes to the scripts used to generate the specification.
Addition of features which have been in use in practice for some time, but have never made it into the spec (including anything with the spec-omission label).
Likewise, corrections to the specification, to fix situations where, in practice, servers and clients behave differently to the specification, including anything with the spec-bug label.
(If there is any doubt about whether it is the spec or the implementations that need fixing, please discuss it with us first in #matrix-dev:matrix.org.)
Clarifications to the specification which do not change the behaviour of Matrix servers or clients in a way which might introduce compatibility problems for existing deployments. This includes anything with the clarification label.
For example, recommendations for UI behaviour do not require a proposal document. On the other hand, changes to event contents would be best discussed in a proposal document even though no changes would be necessary to server implementations.
For such changes, please do just open a pull request.
We ask that everybody who contributes to their project signs off their contributions, as explained below.
We follow a simple 'inbound=outbound' model for contributions: the act of submitting an 'inbound' contribution means that the contributor agrees to license their contribution under the same terms as the project's overall 'outbound' license - in our case, this is Apache Software License v2 (see LICENSE).
In order to have a concrete record that your contribution is intentional and you agree to license it under the same terms as the project's license, we've adopted the same lightweight approach that the Linux Kernel (https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/SubmittingPatches), Docker (https://github.com/docker/docker/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md), and many other projects use: the DCO (Developer Certificate of Origin: http://developercertificate.org/). This is a simple declaration that you wrote the contribution or otherwise have the right to contribute it to Matrix:
Developer Certificate of Origin
Version 1.1
Copyright (C) 2004, 2006 The Linux Foundation and its contributors.
660 York Street, Suite 102,
San Francisco, CA 94110 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this
license document, but changing it is not allowed.
Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1
By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:
(a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I
have the right to submit it under the open source license
indicated in the file; or
(b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best
of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source
license and I have the right under that license to submit that
work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part
by me, under the same open source license (unless I am
permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated
in the file; or
(c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other
person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified
it.
(d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution
are public and that a record of the contribution (including all
personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is
maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with
this project or the open source license(s) involved.
If you agree to this for your contribution, then all that's needed is to include the line in your commit or pull request comment:
Signed-off-by: Your Name <your@email.example.org>
...using your real name; unfortunately pseudonyms and anonymous contributions
can't be accepted. Git makes this trivial - just use the -s flag when you do
git commit, having first set user.name and user.email git configs
(which you should have done anyway :)