The cloud based geoprocessing platform actinia is able to ingest and analyse large volumes of data already present in the cloud. Due to the scalability of the cloud platform insights and tailor made information are delivered in near real-time.

We adopted the name "actinia" from sea anemones which are a group of marine, predatory animals of the order Actiniaria which are named after the terrestrial flowering plant anemone with its colourful appearance. The idea is that the cloud based geoprocessing engine actinia filters information out of the rather unlimited amount of data available.

Originally started as "GRaaS" - GRASS GIS as a Service - project, we changed the name to actinia in 2017.

Actinia has been mainly developed by open source GIS developers of the GRASS GIS project. Since the project is open source, all users, regardless of the profession or skill level, have the ability to contribute to actinia. Here's a few suggestion on how:

• Help actinia users that is less experienced than yourself
• Write a bug report
• Request a new feature
• Write documentation for your favorite actinia usage
• Fix a bug
• Implement a new feature

In the following sections you can find some guidelines on how to contribute. As actinia is managed on GitHub most contributions require that you have a GitHub account. Familiarity with issues and the GitHub Flow is an advantage.

While a mailing list still has to be set up, please do not use the GitHub issue tracker as a support forum. Your question is much more likely to be answered by developers.

Bug reports are handled in the issue tracker on actinia's home on GitHub. Writing a good bug report is not easy. But fixing a poorly documented bug is not easy either, so please put in the effort it takes to create a thorough bug report.

A good bug report includes at least:

• A title that quickly explains the problem
• A description of the problem and how it can be reproduced
• Version of actinia being used
• Version numbers of any other relevant software being used, e.g. operating system
• A description of what already has been done to solve the problem

The more information that is given up front, the more likely it is that a developer will find interest in solving the problem. You will probably get follow-up questions after submitting a bug report. Please answer them in a timely manner if you have an interest in getting the issue solved.

Finally, please only submit bug reports that are actually related to actinia. If the issue materializes in software that uses actinia it is likely a problem with that particular software. Make sure that it actually is a actinia problem before you submit an issue. If you can reproduce the problem only by using tools from actinia it is definitely a problem with actinia.

Got an idea for a new feature in actinia? Submit a thorough description of the new feature in the issue tracker. Please include any technical documents that can help the developer make the new feature a reality. An example of this could be a publicly available academic paper that describes a new geoprocessing method. Also, including a numerical test case will make it much easier to verify that an implementation of your requested feature actually works as you expect.

Note that not all feature requests are accepted.

actinia is in dire need of better documentation. Any contributions of documentation are greatly appreciated. The actinia documentation is available on actinia.mundialis.de. Contributions to the documentation should be made as Pull Requests on GitHub.

Committers are the front line gatekeepers to keep the code base clear of improperly contributed code. It is important to the actinia users, developers and the OSGeo community to avoid contributing any code to the project without it being clearly licensed under the project license.

Generally speaking the key issues are that those providing code to be included in the repository understand that the code will be released under the GPLv3 license, and that the person providing the code has the right to contribute the code. For the committer themselves understanding about the license is hopefully clear. For other contributors, the committer should verify the understanding unless the committer is very comfortable that the contributor understands the license (for instance frequent contributors).

If the contribution was developed on behalf of an employer (on work time, as part of a work project, etc) then it is important that an appropriate representative of the employer understand that the code will be contributed under the GPLv3 license. The arrangement should be cleared with an authorized supervisor/manager, etc.

The code should be developed by the contributor, or the code should be from a source which can be rightfully contributed such as from the public domain, or from an open source project under a compatible license.

All unusual situations need to be discussed and/or documented.

Committer should adhere to the following guidelines, and may be personally legally liable for improperly contributing code to the source repository:

• Make sure the contributor (and possibly employer) is aware of the contribution terms.
• Code coming from a source other than the contributor (such as adapted from another project) should be clearly marked as to the original source, copyright holders, license terms and so forth. This information can be in the file headers, but should also be added to the project licensing file if not exactly matching normal project licensing (LICENSE.txt).
• Existing copyright headers and license text should never be stripped from a file. If a copyright holder wishes to give up copyright they must do so in writing to the project steering committee before copyright messages are removed. If license terms are changed it has to be by agreement (written in email is ok) of the copyright holders.
• When substantial contributions are added to a file (such as substantial patches) the author/contributor should be added to the list of copyright holders for the file.
• If there is uncertainty about whether a change is proper to contribute to the code base, please seek more information from the project steering committee.

This section collects best practices for the use of git in actinia development.

Indicate a component name (eg a driver name), a short description and when relevant, a reference to a issue (with 'fixes #' if it actually fixes it)

COMPONENT_NAME: fix bla bla (fixes #1234)

Details here...

• General GitHub documentation
• GitHub pull request documentation

This CONTRIBUTING file is mainly inspired by PROJ.4's rules with some hints taken from GDAL's rules as well as from GRASS GIS's "get-involved" page.