Emacs 29 has just been released and as I always do, I thanked the developers who worked so hard to bring it to us. Eli Zaretskii and a handful of others do much of the heavy lifting but there are many contributors who produce only a few—maybe even one or two—contributions per release.
Many of these folks simply had an idea that they wanted implemented or found an obscure bug and fixed it. They are people just like you and me who had an itch and scratched it. Even folks who aren’t proficient in Elisp can still help with, say, documentation.
The problem is that contributing to Emacs is an arcane process and can be daunting to a first time contributor. Happily, Protesilaos Stavrou (prot) has come to the rescue with a video on contributing to Emacs core.
The worst part, if you’re an engineer who hates paperwork and bureaucracy, is assigning your copyright. You’ve got this wonderful patch that you’d like to see installed and they tell you need to fill out a form assigning the copyright to the FSF. It wouldn’t be so bad if you could just fill it out and send it in but you have to wait for the FSF’s reply with an agreement for you to (digitally) sign and then wait again for their reply with your contributor number or whatever they call it. In my case that took at least two or three weeks.
Prot doesn’t spend much time on the agreement. Rather he focuses on the mechanical aspects of generating and submitting your change. It’s really useful information for the first time contributor and can save you a lot of time instead of trying to figure it out yourself.
The video is 21 minutes, 42 seconds so you’ll need to schedule some time. If you’re new to the process, you’ll find it time well spent.