CSTART Google Code project
From CSTART Wiki
CSTART has a project at Google Code (Google Code is a Google service providing free software development resources, such as version control repositorites, to open source projects - it is similar in spirit to the older and better-known SourceForge).
The CSTART Google code project features a Mercurial repository which is used to store source code and technical documents for CSTART projects, inculding the standing CSTART Software Library project and projects like OHKLA and CLLARE. The Google code project has a declared GPL3 license for source code and a CC-BY-SA 3.0 license for other content, which means that committing material to the project's Mercurial repository helps us to abide by our Social Contract.
At present, the Mercurial repository is the only Google Code facility which is used by CSTART. A policy regarding use of the Wiki, mailing lists, etc. will be developed in due time.
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[edit] Learning Mercurial
Mercurial is a distributed version control system, which means it is a little different to centralised systems you may have used before, such as CVS or Subversion. There is a slight learning curve involved with using distributed systems, but the benefits for a project like CSTART make it worth while. The resources below will help you get up to speed on Mercurial quickly:
- Mercurial: The Definitive Guide (aka "the Red Bean Book")
[edit] Browsing the Mercurial repository
The Mercurial repository can be browsed using Google Code's web interface here].
Alternatively, you can create your own local clone of the repository using the command "hg clone https://cstart.googlecode.com/hg/ cstart". This will create a directory named "cstart" in the working directory from which you issue the command, which you can then browse through at your leisure, even offline.
[edit] Contributing to the Mercurial repository
There are two ways to get code or diagrams/documents/etc. into the Mercurial repository.
[edit] Committing directly to the official repository
In order to commit directly to the official repository, you need to be a "project committer" of the Google Code project. To become a project committer, you need a Google Account. This is free and you don't need a gmail address to do it, you can associate your Google Account with any email address you like.
You cannot directly apply to become a project committer through the Google Code web interface - instead, somebody who is a "project owner" has to invite you to become a project committer. The project owners are listed on the main page of the Google Code project. You can email any project owner and ask to become a project committer. Note that you are very unlikely to be granted committer status if you just turn up and ask. Typically committer status will only be granted to people who have demonstrated their ability committment to the project through other means first (such as doing good work in a clone repository - see below).
If you just want to make a one off contribution, you can email the material you want to submit to the repository to a project committer and ask them to commit it on your behalf.
[edit] Working on your own clone repository
Without becoming a project committer, you can create a "clone" of the official repository - this is an exact replica of the official repository at the time of cloning, hosted on the Google Code servers, which you can work on and commit to in parallel with work on the official repository. Later, project committers can merge clone repositories or parts of clone repositories with the official repository. This lets new contributors work on the entire repository as a whole without CSTART having to allow everybody access to the official repository and risking vandalism.
To create a new clone of the official repository, go to this page and click on the "create a clone" link in the "Create your own clone" section.
