<HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Introduction</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.63 "><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="Software Release Practice HOWTO" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Software Release Practice HOWTO" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Good patching practice" HREF="patching.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="SECT1" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >Software Release Practice HOWTO</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="index.html" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="patching.html" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT1" ><H1 CLASS="SECT1" ><A NAME="INTRODUCTION" >1. Introduction</A ></H1 ><DIV CLASS="SECT2" ><H2 CLASS="SECT2" ><A NAME="PURPOSE" >1.1. Why this document?</A ></H2 ><P >There is a large body of good-practice traditions for open-source code that helps other people port, use, and cooperate with developing it. Some of these conventions are traditional in the Unix world and predate Linux; others have developed recently in response to particular new tools and technologies such as the World Wide Web.</P ><P >This document will help you learn good practice. It is organized into topic sections, each containing a series of checklist items. Think of these as a pre-flight checklist for your patch or software distribution.</P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT2" ><H2 CLASS="SECT2" ><A NAME="NEWVERSIONS" >1.2. New versions of this document</A ></H2 ><P >This document will be posted monthly to the newsgroups <A HREF="News:comp.os.linux.answers" TARGET="_top" >comp.os.linux.answers</A >. You can also view the latest version of this HOWTO on the World Wide Web via the URL <A HREF="http://www.linuxdoc.org/LDP/HOWTO/Software-Release-Practice-HOWTO.html" TARGET="_top" >http://www.linuxdoc.org/LDP/HOWTO/Software-Release-Practice.html</A >.</P ><P >Feel free to mail any questions or comments about this HOWTO to Eric S. Raymond, <TT CLASS="EMAIL" ><<A HREF="mailto:esr@snark.thyrsus.com" >esr@snark.thyrsus.com</A >></TT >.</P ></DIV ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="patching.html" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Software Release Practice HOWTO</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" > </TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Good patching practice</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >
