There are a number of ways that you can contribute to help make GRASS a
better GIS system. Perhaps the most important way to contribute is to write
high-quality code for solving old and new problems, and to make your code freely
available for others to use. For inspiration, we have a wish-list of
projects
and feature requests. Just pick a task from the list. It may be a good idea to
send a small posting to a related GRASS mailing list to
announce your activities (maybe someone will join you!).
C and Python Programming
If you've already written a useful function or module for GRASS that you
would like to make available for others to use, please post it to the GRASS developers mailing list. GRASS standard
code should be written in ANSI-C, as appropriate also in Python. Messages
sent to this list will be seen by the GRASS maintainers, and will be
considered for inclusion in future releases of GRASS.
The messages are also archived, so even if
the code is not included in a future release, it will remain available for others to use.
In greater detail:
- Bug reports: You are kindly requested to report bugs through
our bug tracking system. Our system
keeps you informed about progress on a detected bug.
- Bug fixing: Please assist in fixing known bugs from the GRASS bug trackers.
If you are unfamiliar with the trackers, please
read this page.
- Implementation of wishes: Wishes are now "enhancement" in the
tracker. Old wishes from the earlier wish tracking system are
still accessible, here.
- Write missing man pages: Help us to write missing man pages. Check against the
existing GRASS 6 manual pages.
- Wanted algorithm: Probably you have already developed an wanted
algorithm which you are willing to share with GIS community? Please
let us know.
- Debian-GIS: See DebianGis web site
Writing/Updating/Improving documentation
If you see manual pages or other documents which are outdated, grammatically
incorrect, too short, lacking examples, etc. please don't hesitate to send revised text segments
(preferably in HTML) to one of the developers or the related mailing list.
Also updates to the web pages are welcome. Just use the contact address at the
bottom of this page, or use our new feature request and bug tracking system. You can request
features and report issues with web pages, but if you have the skills and time, please
consider sending actual segments of corrected or new text or even html, rather than
general statements, to speed up the update process (patches can be submitted in the
"website patches" tracker). See the bug tracking
info page for more information on the new OSGeo Trac system.
Translating GRASS: i18N
You would like to see GRASS talking your language? Please help to translate the
messages. No programming skills required! For details, see the
GRASS i18N page.
Funding
If you find GRASS useful, consider providing
additional funding to continue its development. Even a modest amount of
additional funding could make a significant difference in the amount of time
that its author can devote to development and support.
Other contributions
If you are not a programmer and cannot provide funding or contribute code,
you can still help make GRASS better and more reliable by
reporting any bugs you find in the
latest version and/or by offering suggestions for ways to improve GRASS.
The GRASS Development Team appreciates to hear from you!
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