jflopezfernandez / gnu-project Goto Github PK

Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This file is part of the Standard GNU project.

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# The GNU Project Standard

The purpose of this repository is to serve as a template for how prospective
developers structure their projects prior to submission. There is an ongoing
movement to automate as much of the project approval as possible and this
standardization would go a long way towards establishing an expectation 
through which this can more easily be carried out.

Just as importantly, the standardization of the project structure places the
necessary emphasis on the legal requirements that naturally result from 
developing free software. Unfortunately, developers new to this environment 
tend to not give things like the software licenses -and crucially their 
presence- the attention they deserve, and this is precisely one of the things
we hope to mitigate with this project.

My vision for this project is for it to serve as a clear and simple template 
for formatting new projects, and in the process we can define how projects
should be structured and why. I think clearing up those two mysteries will
go a long way to dispelling the probitive, nebulous aura around starting to
invest in free software in earnest.

One of the ideas I had for the actual code base, since it wouldn't make much
sense to not have one even if it is a bit of an afterthought in this repo, is
to split the code into several smaller modules that get dynamically linked
seamlessly to form the single application. Each module could serve as a short
example of its features, and most importantly it would be a non-trivial
example of how to configure a project of a more realistic size. To top it all
off, the entire project should be internationalized as laid out by the GNU 
Coding Standards.

The goal of this project is to holistically and decisively remove the barriers
to entry into the fraternity of Free software, and as someone who couldn't
have made it without GCC, the GNU collection as a whole, and everyone who 
made it possible, I'm extremely excited to do whatever I can to pass it on.

# Task List

  * TODO: Process command line arguments.
  * TODO: Generate documentation.
  * TODO: Automatically generate the changes to output to the NEWS file.
  * TODO: Add build instructions.