This is the README file for the GNU Hello distribution. Hello prints a friendly greeting. It also serves as a sample GNU package, showing practices that may be useful for GNU projects.

Copyright (C) 1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2013, 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved.

See the files ./INSTALL* for building and installation instructions.

Primary distribution point: ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/hello/ automatic redirection: http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/hello list of mirrors for manual selection: http://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html

Home page: http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/

Developer page: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/hello/

• please file bug reports, patches and feature requests here if possible (otherwise, feel free to use the mailing list)
• significant contributions require a copyright assignment to the Free Software Foundation. The maintainer will be happy to answer questions about the process.

Mailing list: bug-hello@gnu.org

• please use this list for all discussion
• archived at: http://lists.gnu.org/pipermail/bug-hello
• anyone is welcome to join the list; to do so, visit http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-hello

Bug reports: Please include enough information for the maintainers to reproduce the problem. Generally speaking, that means:

• the contents of any input files necessary to reproduce the bug and command line invocations of the program(s) involved (crucial!).
• a description of the problem and any samples of the erroneous output.
• the version number of the program(s) involved (use --version).
• hardware, operating system, and compiler versions (uname -a).
• unusual options you gave to configure, if any (see config.status).
• anything else that you think would be helpful.

Patching process:

• All changes must be sent to mailing list.
• Changes are reviewed by maintainers.
• Maintainer does not review own changes.
  • In case of single maintainer, or unresponsive co-maintainer, mailing list subscribers may perform the review.
• Review means either a patch approval, comments to author, or a reject.
  • Approved patches are taken to upstream git.
  • Commented patches will require work before they can be approved. Comments can be untechnical, such as a change author must submit a copyright assignment to FSF.
  • Authors are encouraged to discontinue work with rejected changes, as the reject is permanent.
• Maintainers keep track of rejected changes so that developers can avoid proposing the same in future.

Patches are most welcome; if possible, please make them in git-am format, and include a suitable commit message.

See README-dev for information on the development environment -- any interested parties are welcome. If you're a programmer and wish to contribute, this should get you started. If you're not a programmer, your help in writing test cases, checking the documentation against the implementation, translating the program strings to other languages, etc., would still be very much appreciated.

The basic Hello algorithm was described by B.W. Kernighan and D.M. Ritchie. The GNU implementation is substantially more complex, in order to be a canonical example of a GNU package. Many people have contributed; please see the AUTHORS and ChangeLog files.

GNU Hello is free software. See the file COPYING for copying conditions.