=head1 NAME

contrib - Contribution Guidelines for MRTG

=head1 SYNOPSIS

If you have written an extension to mrtg or created a bug fix, please
consider contributing it to the project. As I get quite a number of
contributions every week, here are a few guide lines which explain how to
contribute so that I can use the contribution without too much additional
work.

=head1 TRANSLATIONS

MRTG messages have been translated to a number of languages. But there are
still many which have not been covered yet. If you want to add yours, go
into the F<mrtg-2.9.18/translate> directory, and follow the instructions
given in the F<README> file.

=head1 DOCUMENTATION

All documentation of mrtg is done with the perl B<POD> system. If you want to
learn about it, type

 perldoc perlpod

and read the instructions. If you have bugfixes of additions to the existing
documents, make sure you modify the B<POD> files and not the html or txt
versions.

=head1 PATCHES

When you have created your modification or extension to mrtg and want to
submit it to me, please crate a patch for the files which you have modified.
Do not send entire files unless they are new.

To create a patch, get hold of a copy of GNU diff (Many Unix systems will
have this installed already. In the NT world you might want to get
http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin/ to get all the nice GNU tools available.)
and type

 diff --unified --ignore-space-change old-file new-file > simple.patch

or if you have modified several files do

 diff --recursive --unified --ignore-space-change old-dir/ new-dir/ >long.patch

=head1 DOCUMENTATION

I take documentation very seriously. Whenever you create a new feature for
mrtg which you want to get included in the official release your patch must
also contain modifications for the relevant B<pod> file in the F<doc> tree or
for the documentation sections of F<cfgmaker> and F<indexmaker>.

=head1 ADDRESS

Send your patches, translations and contributions to Tobias Oetiker
E<lt>oetiker@ee.ethz.chE<gt>

=head1 AUTHOR

Tobias Oetiker E<lt>oetiker@ee.ethz.chE<gt>
