--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/doc/contributing.txt	Thu May 17 11:32:22 2007 +0200
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+
+Contributing to the ns-3 project
+--------------------------------
+
+Despite the lack of a formal contribution process to the ns-3
+project, there are a number of steps which we expect every
+potential contributor to follow. These naturally stem from 
+the open-source roots of the project:
+
+  - first, you should subscribe to the ns-developers 
+    mailing-list (see http://www.nsnam.org/mailing_lists.html)
+
+  - then, you should send an email there stating your interest
+    in working on a specific part of the models and trying
+    to explain how you would like to implement it, what 
+    resources you have, etc.
+
+  - you should be prepared to work together with the other
+    potential contributors who want to work on the same models.
+
+  - you should be prepared to go through code reviews with the
+    ns-3 development team prior to integration. The goal of these
+    code reviews is to:
+      - ensure adherence to the coding style of the project
+        (see doc/codingstyle.html)
+      - ensure that the structure of your code has a certain 
+        coherence with regard to the rest of the ns-3 codebase
+      - improve the quality of the code: we strongly believe in
+        the old saying: "many eyes make all bugs shallow".
+      - increase code reuse by trying to generalize certain 
+        useful pieces of your code to make them available to
+        other models.
+
+  - you should be prepared to try to integrate as many tests
+    in the codebase as possible: we understand that writing
+    tests is not sexy and that not everyone is convinced that
+    they improve the code-writing poductivity which is why
+    we do not enforce strict rules about testing. However,
+    we expect model authors to answer basic questions about
+    how they plan to test and validate their models.
+
+  - you should be prepared to maintain your model once it is
+    integrated: while we consider every bug filed against the 
+    simulator as being a bug we must deal with and while we 
+    will try to fix as many bugs as humanly possible, we
+    also expect model authors to act as responsible maintainers
+    and be reactive to bug reports concerning their models.
+
+  - you should make sure that you understand that contributed
+    models should be licensed under the GPLv2. You do not have
+    to assign your copyright to the ns-3 project but you must
+    accept the terms of the GPLv2. See the following link:
+    http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/info/GPLv2.html