Develop plan for engaging with open source developers & other contributors

[SteelWagstaff]

Pressbooks is a long standing open source software project. It very rarely receives contributions from people who don't work for Pressbooks and there are several barriers to getting started. We would like to develop a better plan for recruiting, supporting, and encouraging contributions to our open source project.

Our get involved page now reads like this: https://pressbooks.org/get-involved/

This plan should include instructions to help a new developer write their first PR in a Pressbooks repo (i.e. include simple material that helps them understand Pressbooks coding standards and conventions so they can prepare my commits and PRs in a way that will pass the CI/CD pipeline and be ready for human review)

[SteelWagstaff]

Current docs:

1. Branch Workflow: https://pressbooks.org/dev-docs/branch-workflow/
2. Coding Standards: https://pressbooks.org/dev-docs/coding-standards/
3. Unit Testing: https://pressbooks.org/dev-docs/unit-testing/
4. PHPStorm Configuration: https://pressbooks.org/dev-docs/phpstorm/
5. Theme Development: https://pressbooks.org/dev-docs/theme-development/
6. REST API: https://pressbooks.org/dev-docs/rest-api/

We may also want to consider updating the general installation and debugging guides as well:

1. https://pressbooks.org/user-docs/installation/
2. https://pressbooks.org/user-docs/debugging/

Other internal docs/conventions:

1. https://github.com/pressbooks/private/wiki/Pressbooks-Front-End-Coding-Intro#internal-coding-conventions
2. Code review process: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rUREpje_frN1tTxqxisWSqGFAOqxbBtEDZdQpOrjwVY/edit#heading=h.fldndshjfq5s
3. Tech team work guide: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13Ayta7mCo94x5792hoHAYvHIpS9zbmehRLQ7xuRQAxc/edit#heading=h.mx8v8wets0kr
4. Git Branch policy: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fssRW7NTlS4eTreXqfvbMSRtwFXr2cW0pxEc7-Tp9dE/edit

Possible refinement approach

• Tech team meeting to reach a consensus on the necessary documentation/process improvements. This meeting could include:
  • Review all existing documentation and identify gaps.
  • Check our setup development environment and necessary changes to make it public and ready-to-use by open source contributors.
  • Review contribution guidelines and coding standards by repo level, with docs.
  • Analyze PR docs needed for open source contributors like: how to write PR descriptions, test coverage, standards expected, etc.
• Create issues ready to refine as the next steps.

Possible path:

• Team Alignment Meetings: Conduct meetings with the team to agree on the analysis findings and the proposed documentation/process changes.
• Analyze Current Documentation: Review and list all existing documentation, noting what is outdated, missing, or unclear.
• Separate Open Source and Private Dependencies in our lando setup (maybe create a new open source bedrock?)
• Develop Contribution Guidelines: Update contribution guidelines and make sure those are clear and easy to follow.
• "How to create a PR at Pressbooks?" docs (by repo? or in general?). Here we want to explain: test coverage, PR description, etc.
• PR Review process: Have the documentation peer-reviewed by team members and, if possible, by a sample of external open source contributors.
• Create/Update Documentation: Based on the team's feedback, create or update documentation and guidelines.
• Publish Documentation: Make the documentation accessible in a dedicated, easy-to-find section of the project repository or website and is revised by the team.