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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>Chapter 10. Helping</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="userguide.css" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets Vsnapshot" /><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="FreeTDS User Guide" /><link rel="up" href="index.html" title="FreeTDS User Guide" /><link rel="prev" href="askingforhelp.html" title="What to include when asking for help" /><link rel="next" href="Light.taper.html" title="Light another's taper" /></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Chapter 10. Helping</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="askingforhelp.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center"> </th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="Light.taper.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr /></div><div class="chapter"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h1 class="title"><a id="contrib"></a>Chapter 10. Helping</h1></div></div></div><div class="toc"><p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p><dl class="toc"><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="contrib.html#Pickweakspot">Pick a weak spot and fix it.</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="contrib.html#Sendpatch">Send a patch</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="contrib.html#Correct">Correct this User Guide</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="contrib.html#Documentapi">Document an <acronym class="acronym">API</acronym></a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="contrib.html#webmaster">Be the Webmaster</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="Light.taper.html">Light another's taper</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="Ambition.html">Ambitious ideas</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="Ambition.html#idm3666"><code class="literal">libtds2</code></a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="Ambition.html#idm3673"><code class="literal">libstddb</code></a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="Ambition.html#idm3678">Server code </a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="Advocacy.html">Advocacy</a></span></dt></dl></div><div class="epigraph"><p>The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.</p><div class="attribution"><span>—<span class="attribution">Bertrand Russell</span></span></div></div><p><span class="productname">FreeTDS</span> is a cooperative, volunteer effort. Flame wars on the list are unknown and the signal to noise ratio is pretty high for its venue. Many people have contributed patches, and few have been turned away.</p><div class="sect1"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="Pickweakspot"></a>Pick a weak spot and fix it.</h2></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "><li class="listitem"><p>We don't have enough non-English speakers to test our character set conversion features. Anyone willing to participate in that way would be most welcome.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Canonical examples of using the each library would be very helpful to newcomers.</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>An isql Perl and PHP would all make debugging and testing easier for everyone.</p></li></ul></div><div class="sect2"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="Sendpatch"></a>Send a patch</h3></div></div></div><p>Good patches are nearly always applied in short order. Patches uploaded to <a class="ulink" href="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=33106&atid=407808" target="_top">SourceForge</a> trigger automatic notification to the <span class="productname">FreeTDS</span> mailing list.</p></div><div class="sect2"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="Correct"></a>Correct this User Guide</h3></div></div></div><p>Any corrections or suggestions, be they typographical, grammatical, structural, factual, or mineral are most welcome. Please send it to the <a class="ulink" href="mailto:freetds@lists.ibiblio.org" target="_top"><span class="productname">FreeTDS</span> mailing list</a>.</p><p>The User Guide is maintained in <acronym class="acronym">XML</acronym> DocBook format; the file in your distibution is <code class="filename">doc/userguide.xml</code>. It is a flat ASCII file that you can edit with any text editor. You don't have to know <acronym class="acronym">XML</acronym> to correct or add to the User Guide, however. Just open it up, find the place you're interested in, and type away. Do a <span class="command"><strong>diff -u <em class="replaceable"><code>old_version</code></em> <em class="replaceable"><code>your_version</code></em></strong></span> and post your patch to the SourceForge site. Any errors or lackings in your markup will be graciously emended by yours truly.</p></div><div class="sect2"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="Documentapi"></a>Document an <acronym class="acronym">API</acronym></h3></div></div></div><p>We have just begun an independent reference manual to <span class="productname">FreeTDS</span>; the main <acronym class="acronym">API</acronym> documents are the work of the server vendors. We're using <a class="ulink" href="http://www.doxygen.org" target="_top">Doxygen</a>, which extracts documentation directly from comments in the source code, and we're maybe 25% done.</p><p>The <acronym class="acronym">TDS</acronym> protocol is partly documented, as are the <acronym class="acronym">API</acronym>s to <code class="filename">libtds</code> and <code class="systemitem">DB-Library</code>, but much remains.</p></div><div class="sect2"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="webmaster"></a>Be the Webmaster</h3></div></div></div><p>The FAQ and in particular the news don't get updated often enough. If that's your thing, drop a line to the <a class="ulink" href="mailto:freetds@lists.ibiblio.org" target="_top"><span class="productname">FreeTDS</span> mailing list</a>.</p></div></div></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="askingforhelp.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"> </td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="Light.taper.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">What to include when asking for help </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Light another's taper</td></tr></table></div></body></html>