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Written by Oleksandr Gavenko (AKA gavenkoa), compiled at 2015-10-05 from rev 764bb173578d.

Development project files.

Essential project files.

  • README
  • INSTALL
  • COPYING/LICENSE
  • AUTHORS
  • CHANGES

This files can have suffixes to represent formating syntax:

  • .txt - plain text
  • .rst - reStructuredText
  • .md - Markdown
  • .rd, .rdoc - RDtool

and optionally compressed - .gz.

README file.

Assumed that users first read this file before start using project.

  • Project name.
  • Project goal/purpose.
  • Point to license statements.
  • Point to build instructions.
  • Point to documentations.
  • Use README-xxx for specific topic.

ABOUT/OVERVIEW/SUMMARY file.

  • About project.
  • Use ABOUT-xxx for specific topic.

ABOUT-NLS file.

  • Notes on the Free Translation Project.

MIRRORS/WHERE file.

  • Where get src/build, mirrors list.

PLATFORMS file.

  • Supported platforms and compilers.

AUTHORS/MAINTAINERS file.

 AUTHOR  AUTHORS  MAINTAINERS

* Was maintained for legal reasons.
* Regular contributor list.
* List of project members with contact info (email, phone, home page, address,
  etc).

CONTRIBUTORS/THANKS/CREDITS file.

 CONTRIBUTORS THANKS CREDITS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

* Casual/non-regular contributor list.
* Wasn't maintained for legal reasons.
* Thanks for hardware/hosting/money etc.

FORK file.

  • Why this project is fork of another project.

COMMANDS file.

  • brief list of commands for built-in language

UPGRADE/UPGRADING/CONVERSION file.

  • How upgrade to new version.

SERVICE/SUPPORT file.

  • about support services for software

INSTALL/BUILD file.

  • List of supported platform.
  • Build dependencies/prerequisites.
  • Build/installation instructions.

CUSTOMIZE file.

  • Customize the compilation.

License files.

Apache file.

Apache-1.0
Apache-1.1
Apache-2.0

PHP file.

PHP-3.0

MIT file.

MIT  LICENSE_MIT

BSD file.

BSD  LICENSE_BSD

GPL file.

GPL-2    GPL2
GPL-2.0
GPL-3.0  GPL3
LICENSE-GPL

LGPL file.

LGPL-2   LGPL-2.0  LGPL-2.1  LGPL-3.0  LICENSE_LGPL
COPYING.LESSER

Developer files.

HACKING/DEVELOPERS/PORTING file.

  • Notes for developers.

CONTENTS file.

  • Description which file for which comes.

CONTRIBUTE file.

  • Guidelines to contribute to the project.
CONTRIB
CONTRIBS
CONTRIBUTE
Contributing
HOW-TO-CONTRIBUTE

DEBUG/DEBUGGING file.

  • How debug sources, useful macros/function/tips.

TESTS/CHECK_NOTES file.

  • How run/add tests, requirements to run.
  • How and when test passed by which platform/configuration.

BINDINGS file.

  • Known bindings of library to different langs/frameworks.

Coding style files.

C++STYLE
CodeStyle

CODING file.

  • project policy and recommendation on coding

Project changes files.

Here goes news and descriptions of user visible changes:

  • Important project news.
  • New features.
  • Obsolescense/deprecation of UIs/APIs/protocols/formats.

ChangeLog file.

  • Changes made to program source files.
  • Explains how earlier versions were different from the current version.
  • Each directory can have its own change log.
  • Useful for RCS/CVS. Don’t needed with modern VCS (SVN, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar).
changelog  Changelog  ChangeLog
CHANGELOG
ChangeLog-1996-1999   ChangeLog-2000
ChangeLogOld

COMPAT/COMPLIANCE file.

  • Compatibility with previous versions.

NEWS/OLDNEWS/ONEWS file.

  • User-visible changes.
  • In each new release, add items to the front of the file and identify the version they pertain to.
  • Don’t discard old items.
  • NEWS file gets very long, move some of the older items into a file named ONEWS and put a note at the end referring the user to that file.

CHANGES/WHATSNEW file.

Changes  CHANGES  CHANGES-release
RELEASE_NOTES  ReleaseNotes  RELEASENOTES  RELEASE-NOTES
RELNOTES
SHORTLOG
WHATSNEW

Todo files.

  • List of high level wanted, general project roadmap.
  • Discussion about product limitations and how to modify product to resolve them.

Similar:

BACKLOG
CHECKLIST
TODO
PROJECTS

Version info files.

VERSION file.

  • Package version.
  • Package name (optional).
  • Release naming schema and version number semantics (optional).
  • Release names and version relations (like starts, toys, animals, etc, optional).

ANNOUNCE file.

 ANNOUNCE
 ANNOUNCEMENT

* Only current release changes and notes. No history. Same text was sent to
  mail lists as announce.

HISTORY file.

  • Project history in long perspective.

Documentation files.

Refcard files.

cheatsheet
refcard

FAQ files.

  • List of frequency asked questions with answers.

PROBLEMS/KNOWNBUG/WARNINGS file.

PROBLEMS
KNOWNBUG  KNOWN_BUGS  KNOWN-BUGS
WARNINGS

Bug report instructions.

BUGFORM
REPORTING-BUGS
BUG-REPORTING
BUG-REPORTS
BUGS

Reference.

/usr/share/doc/common-licenses/*
from Cygwin ‘base-files’ package, list of licence files

Unknown files.

AUDIT
DETAILS
FILE-FORMAT
Fixes
FIXES
FORMAT
MAIL
NEEDED
PGPKEYS
PKG-INFO - http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0241/ http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0314/
PLACES
ROADMAP
TRACING

Reference.

  • GNU Coding Standards
  • Gnits Standards