HHH-7802 - Create a CONTRIBUTING.md file

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+Guidelines for Contributing
+====
+Contributions from the community are essential in keeping Hibernate (any Open Source
+project really) strong and successful.  While we try to keep requirements for
+contributing to a minimum, there are a few guidelines we ask that you mind.
+
+## Getting Started
+If you are just getting started with Git, GitHub and/or contributing to Hibernate via
+GitHub there are a few pre-requisite steps.
+
+* Make sure you have a [Hibernate Jira account](https://hibernate.onjira.com)
+* Make sure you have a [GitHub account](https://github.com/signup/free)
+* [Fork](http://help.github.com/fork-a-repo) the Hibernate repository.  As discussed in
+the linked page, this also includes:
+    * [Set](https://help.github.com/articles/set-up-git) up your local git install
+    * Clone your fork
+
+
+## Create the working (topic) branch
+Create a "topic" branch on which you will work.  The convention is to name the branch
+using the JIRA issue key.  If there is not already a Jira issue covering the work you
+want to do, create one.  Assuming you will be working from the master branch and working
+on the Jira HHH-123 : `git checkout -b HHH-123 master`
+
+
+## Code
+Do yo thang!
+
+## Commit
+
+* Make commits of logical units.
+* Be sure to use the JIRA issue key in the commit message.  This is how Jira will pick
+up the related commits and display them on the Jira issue.
+* Make sure you have added the necessary tests for your changes.
+* Run _all_ the tests to assure nothing else was accidentally broken.
+
+_Prior to commiting, if you want to pull in the latest upstream changes (highly
+appreciated btw), please use rebasing rather than merging.  Merging creates
+"merge commits" that really muck up the project timeline._
+
+## Submit
+* Sign the [Contributor License Agreement](https://projects.puppetlabs.com/contributor_licenses/sign).
+* Push your changes to a topic branch in your fork of the repository.
+* Initiate a [pull request](http://help.github.com/send-pull-requests/)
+* Update the Jira issue, adding a comment inclusing a link to the created pull request