Getting Mercurial push access

While the netbeans.org Mercurial repositories allow anonymous read access, an account must be specifically granted permissions to write ("push") to the repository. This page outlines the process for requesting such permission.

Requesting commit access for the NetBeans sources

If you would like to work seriously on a piece of existing NetBeans code:

1. Make sure you are subscribed to (and read!) the relevant mailing lists so that you know what is going on in that area of development. It is also necessary to subscribe to the broken builds notification mailing list.

2. Make sure you have looked through the existing source code and understand what it is doing and how. If something is poorly documented, confusing, or you just can't grasp what is going on, ask on for a summary. Probably the original developer should write better Javadoc or other documentation to explain it anyway.

3. Make sure you have a login on the site. Anyone can make one for him or herself (but without any special permissions). You will need one for using Issuezilla, Mercurial, and so on.

4. Submit some patches so that it is clear you know what you are doing.

5. Ask an existing committer to be given push permission to the desired repository, and explain what sorts of things you are interested in doing with it. You will need to communicate frequently with person or people who already maintain that area of code, so make sure there is an agreement on what you should be working on. The module owner ought to mention on nbdev new people he or she is approving as developers with a summary of what they are working on, and initially take responsibility for making sure they know what to do.

6. Also mention in writing that you understand that your work is on Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) v1.0 and the GNU General Public License (GPL) v2 code and that you agree that all changes you make are things you write yourself and that they can be incorporated under these licenses.

7. You must have filled in a Contributor Agreement - see the CA Policy page for more info. No code can be committed until a CA is completed.

8. If approved, you can begin working. Make sure you understand which Mercurial repository (branch) you are supposed to be working on! Also make sure you read and understand the Commit Rules.

9. Make modifications and enhancements and talk about them on the associated mailing lists.