Everyone is welcome to contribute to the matrix-doc project, provided that they are willing to license their contributions under the same license as the project itself. We follow a simple 'inbound=outbound' model for contributions: the act of submitting an 'inbound' contribution means that the contributor agrees to license the code under the same terms as the project's overall 'outbound' license - in our case, this is Apache Software License v2 (see LICENSE).
The Matrix specification documents the APIs which Matrix clients can 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 following workflow:
Create a discussion document outlining the proposed change. The document should include details such as the HTTP endpoint being changed (or the suggested URL for a new endpoint), any new or changed parameters and response fields, and generally as much detail about edge-cases and error handling as is practical at this stage.
The Matrix Core Team's preferred tool for such discussion documents is Google Docs thanks to its support for comment threads. Works in progress are kept in a folder at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4wHq8qP86r2ck15MHEwMmlNVUk.
- Seek feedback on the proposal. #matrix-dev:matrix.org is a good place to reach the core team and others who may be interested in your proposal.
Implement the changes in servers and clients. Refer to the CONTRIBUTING files of the relevant projects for details of how best to do this.
In general we will be unable to publish specification updates until the reference server implements them, and they have been proven by a working client implementation.
- Iterate steps 1-3 as necessary.
- Write the specification for the change, and create a pull request for it. It may be that much of the text of the change can be taken directly from the discussion document, though typically some effort will be needed to change to the ReST syntax and to ensure that the text is as clear as possible.
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 supporting documentation
- changes to the scripts used to generate the specification
- 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. 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.
The preferred and easiest way to contribute changes to the matrix-doc project is to fork it on github, and then create a pull request to ask us to pull your changes into our repo (https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests/).
(Note that, unlike most of the other matrix.org projects, pull requests for matrix-doc should be based on the master branch.)
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.
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 :)