130 lines
6.3 KiB
Markdown
130 lines
6.3 KiB
Markdown
<a href="http://www.discourse.org/"></a>
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Discourse is the 100% open source, next-generation discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet.
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Whenever you need ...
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- a mailing list
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- a forum to discuss something
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- a chat room where you can type paragraphs
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... consider Discourse.
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## Getting Started
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If you're interested in helping us develop Discourse, please start with our [**Discourse Vagrant Developer Guide**](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/VAGRANT.md), which includes instructions to get up and running in a development environment using a virtual machine. It's the easiest way to hack on Discourse!
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If you're familiar with how Rails works and are comfortable setting up your own environment, use our [**Discourse Advanced Developer Guide**](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/DEVELOPER-ADVANCED.md).
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### Requirements
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- [Ruby 1.9.3+](http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads/)
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- [PostgreSQL 9.1+](http://www.postgresql.org/download/)
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- [Redis 2.6+](http://redis.io/download)
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## Vision
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Discourse is a **Civilized Discourse Construction Kit**, an 100% open-source discussion platform that is free for everyone to use and contribute to -- forever.
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Key Discourse mission goals:
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- A **flattened, endlessly scrolling discussion**, avoiding the akwardness of traditionally threaded and paginated discussion, while allowing replies to be expanded in place for additional context.
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- A **user trust system** that grants users additional rights to assist in moderating the forum as they participate in good faith over time. The goal is for the forum to be nearly self-moderating in the absence of any formal moderators, although excellent moderators accelerate the process greatly.
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- An **advanced JavaScript app** which runs in modern browsers and works identically on desktop and tablet, without the need for a native app.
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- A **contemporary, robust technology stack**, free of legacy PHP and MySQL constraints limiting developers and administrators.
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The Discourse team wishes to **foster an active community of contributors**, all of whom commit to delivering this continued vision, ensuring that free, unfettered online discussion can grow and thrive in an Internet age dominated by micro-blogging, and diminishing attention spans. Online discussion belongs to all of us, not just huge corporate websites.
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This vision translates to the following functional commitments:
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1. Support only modern browsers on the desktop:
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- Internet Explorer 9.0, 10.0+
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- Firefox 16+
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- Google Chrome 23+
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- Safari 5+
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2. Support the latest generation of tablets, 7" or larger
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- iPad 2+
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- Android 4.1+
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- Windows 8
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3. Deliver support for the latest generation of small screen mobile/smartphones *as soon as possible*:
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- Windows Phone 8
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- iOS 5+
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- Android 4.0+
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## Contributing
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[](https://travis-ci.org/discourse/discourse)
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[](https://codeclimate.com/github/discourse/discourse)
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Discourse is **100% free** and **open-source**. We encourage and support an active, healthy community that
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accepts contributions from the public, and we'd like you to be a part of that community.
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Before contributing to Discourse, please:
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1. Review the [**VISION**](#vision) section above, which will help you understand the needs of the team, and the focus of the project,
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2. Read and sign the [**Electronic Discourse Forums Contribution License Agreement**](http://discourse.org/cla), to confirm you've read and acknowledged the legal aspects of your contributions, and
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3. Dig into [**CONTRIBUTING.MD**](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/CONTRIBUTING.md), which houses all of the necessary info to:
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- submit bugs,
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- request new features, and
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- step you through the entire process of preparing your code for a Pull Request.
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4. Have a look here: http://meta.discourse.org/t/so-you-want-to-help-out-with-discourse/3823
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**We look forward to seeing your cool stuff!**
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## Expertise
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In order to be an effective contributor, familiarize yourself with the various open source components that Discourse is built on:
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### Languages/Frameworks
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1. [Ruby on Rails](https://github.com/rails/rails) - Our back end API is a Rails app. It responds to requests RESTfully and responds in JSON.
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2. [Ember.js](https://github.com/emberjs/ember.js) - Our front end interface is an Ember.js app that communicates with the Rails API.
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### Databases
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1. [PostgreSQL](http://www.postgresql.org/) - Our main data store is Postgres.
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2. [Redis](http://redis.io/) - We use Redis for our job queue, rate limiting, as a cache and for transient data.
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### Ruby Gems
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The complete list of Ruby Gems used by Discourse can be found in [**SOFTWARE.MD**](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/SOFTWARE.md).
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## Versioning
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Discourse implements the Semantic Versioning guidelines.
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Releases will be numbered with the following format:
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`<major>.<minor>.<patch>`
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And constructed with the following guidelines:
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- Breaking backward compatibility bumps the major (and resets the minor and patch)
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- New additions without breaking backward compatibility bumps the minor (and resets the patch)
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- Bug fixes and misc changes bumps the patch
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For more information on SemVer, please visit http://semver.org/.
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## The Discourse Team
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The Discourse code contributors can be found in [**AUTHORS.MD**](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/AUTHORS.md). For a complete list of the many individuals that contributed to the design and implementation of Discourse, please refer to the official website.
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## Copyright / License
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Copyright 2013 Civilized Discourse Construction Kit, Inc.
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Licensed under the GNU General Public License Version 2.0 (or later);
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you may not use this work except in compliance with the License.
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You may obtain a copy of the License in the LICENSE file, or at:
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.txt
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Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
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distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
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WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
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See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
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limitations under the License.
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