Patches Welcome

License

OpenKore is a wikipedia:free software licensed under the terms of GNU General Public License. In short, it means:

• anyone can run it for any purpose;
• anyone can study how it works, and change it to make it do what they with;
• anyone can redistribute it;
• anyone can improve it, and release their improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

This overview DOES NOT replace actual license in any way. You need to read and understand actual license before using or contributing to this project.

Note that the greater part of OpenKore runs directly from the source (and the other is meant to be compiled right before running).

Ways of Modification

Plugin

Plugin is a Perl script OpenKore runs and interacts with via various hooks. As plugins use the same Perl interpreter as OpenKore, they can use its internals and symbolic table manupulation to alter just about anything.

Benefits of plugins over patches:

• Plugins can be easily (un)installed without modifications of OpenKore itself.
• Plugins are independent from OpenKore modifications to some degree, so unless there is really incompatible update, they will keep working.

To share your plugin, post it with description and instructions in corresponding forum section, like "Other Plugins".

Plugins could be added to OpenKore svn, for committing you need to gain write access or ask ones who have it.

Patch

"Patch" is a direct modification of OpenKore source code. That's needed in the first place for fixing bugs in the existing stuff.

To share your patch, don't just post your whole OpenKore directory (bonus points: on a random JavascriptFlashWaitBeforeDownload file hosting), that most likely will result in deleting your post.

Instead, post a diff file and specify a svn revision you've worked with.

Benefits of diffs:

• Your patch most likely can be applied to subsequent revisions.
• Modified with your patch OpenKore can be updated without disturbing your applied patch.
• People can quickly inspect and understand your modifications and provide more intelligent feedback.
• Developers can commit your patch into trunk way more easily.

Use svn client or other tools to create and apply diffs.

If you're posting a diff file, you can also optionally post OpenKore with that patch applied or just changed files. But that is unnecessary.

Notes

Archive formats

If you're posting an archive, do not use proprietary formats like rar. It just can't be unpacked on many systems. If developer or any other peer would be unable to unpack your archive, most likely he will just ignore you. There are a lot of suitable interoperable formats around, like tar, zip etc.