## Contributing to SOFABoot

SOFABoot is released under the Apache 2.0 license, and follows a very
standard GitHub development process, using GitHub tracker for issues and
merging pull requests into master . If you would like to contribute something,
or simply want to hack on the code this document should help you get started.

### Sign the Contributor License Agreement
Before we accept a non-trivial patch or pull request we will need you to
sign the Contributor License Agreement. Signing the contributor’s agreement
does not grant anyone commits rights to the main repository, but it does mean
that we can accept your contributions, and you will get an author credit if
we do. Active contributors might be asked to join the core team, and given
the ability to merge pull requests.

### Code Conventions
None of these is essential for a pull request, but they will all help.

1. we provided a [code formatter file](tools/Formatter.xml), it will format
automatically your project when during process of building.

2. Make sure all new `.java` files to have a simple Javadoc class comment
with at least an `@author` tag identifying you, and preferably at least a
paragraph on what the class is for.

3. Add the ASF license header comment to all new `.java` files (copy from existing files in the project)

4. Add yourself as an `@author` to the `.java` files that you modify substantially (more than cosmetic changes).

5. Add some Javadocs.

6. A few unit tests would help a lot as well — someone has to do it.

7. When writing a commit message please follow [these conventions](https://tbaggery.com/2008/04/19/a-note-about-git-commit-messages.html), if
you are fixing an existing issue please add Fixes gh-XXXX at the end
of the commit message (where XXXX is the issue number).