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After several years of internal development, the core development team feels it is time to introduce
the Portal Foundation Classes library to the general public. In a first stage, the core team is looking for
capable developers who are willing to use the 0.9 release when building their own internet applications.
This will help the core team to field test the library with a larger audience and prepare for a quality 1.0
release.
As explained in the release schedule (see menu on the left), the 0.9 release is an almost fully
functional 1.0 release except for documentation. To help the first generation use the library with key documentation
lacking, the core team has created the Developer Sunrise Program. With this program, the core team
has created an environment in which developers can use the library with active and prompt help from both the
core team itself and other participants in the program.
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Everyone is free to join the program if they are willing to follow certain, minimal, guidelines. These guidelines
ensure the Developer Sunrise Program can be as beneficial as possible the everyone. In more detail the core team
asks the participants to:
- subscribe to the pfc-users and pfc-devel mailing lists
- report bugs to the SourceForge trackers
- provide feedback, positive and negatieve, to the core team
- follow the Developer Sunrise Program releases of PFC as closely as possible
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The more people who can participate in any discussion, the better. The same goes for questions you might have:
the more people seeing your question, the higher the chance is somebody knows the answer. Even if you don't have
any questions yet, seeing the questions and answers posted on the mailing lists will surely help you down the
road with your development projects.
Last but certainly not the least, SourceForge mailing lists are archived. You or anyone else can search all
the posts on the lists for answers to your questions and problems.
Subscribe now!
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Although a personal email to one of the members of the core team might get the bug fixed, the core team
cannot guarantee that everyone of those emails will be processed. Sometimes the email is lost or it is received
at a bad time. If you want to get your bug fixed as soon as possible, you will have to report it using the
SourceForge bug tracker for the PFC project.
Portal Foundation Classes Bug Tracker.
With the tracker we also have a trace of the bug, the steps taken and any comments or remarks during the life cycle
of the bug. We can even re-open it again if it was not fixed.
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On a regular basis (from once a day to once a week) the core team will release updated versions of the 0.9 release.
These new releases will contained bug fixes, enhancements or other improvements as reported by the participants. Although
it is not required to upgrade each time a new release is announced, participants are strongly encouraged no to wait to long
to upgrade. Note that upgrades should be fairly painless since structural changes to the API are generally not allowed
in the 0.9 release. See the release schedule for more information.
Upgrading to a new DSP release will normally just mean dropping in a new jar file.
Details about releases and where to find them will be posted on the mailing lists.
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Can I change the Portal Foundation Library myself?
Yes! Post any changes you made to the pfc-devel mailing list for discussion. The core team is more then happy
to receive your patches and will apply them for you to the main cvs tree. If you frequently send us patches or if the
quality is at consistent high levels we will even give you write access to the cvs team and consider you a member
of the core team.
Can I help the Portal Foundation Library project?
Any help is greatly appreciated. The most help is required in the documentation area, but you are free to chose any
part of the project to give a helping hand. Post your ideas on the pfc-devel or pfc-users mailing lists.
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