Update CONTRIBUTING.md

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -1,7 +1,37 @@
-# ANDROID APP SUBMISIONS
+# Contributing to F-Droid
 
-[Search on the repository's issues](git@gitlab.com:viccuad/fdroiddata.git) before opening a new issue! Duplicate issues will be removed or merged with the appropriate issues.
+Thanks so much for contributing to [F-Droid](https://f-droid.org)! Please take your time to read carefully through this document:
 
-All apps must comply with the [Inclusion Policy](https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Inclusion_Policy).
+## Issue Tracker
 
-If they do, please have a look at the [Inclusion How-To](https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Inclusion_How-To).
+The issue tracker is used both for app submissions and problem reports.
+
+For the latter one please provide detailed system (e.g. Android version, used ROM, hardware specifications) and error information (e.g. What happened? When did it happen?) and provide the [logcat](https://developer.android.com/tools/help/logcat.html) -- either by file upload or by inclduing it with the appropriated [markdown](https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/blob/master/doc/markdown/markdown.md).
+
+For submissions or update/change requests, please make sure they meet our [inclusion policy](https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Inclusion_Policy) and are not already handled by our [submission queue](https://f-droid.org/forums/forum/submission-queue/) (or are [held](https://f-droid.org/forums/forum/submission-held/) for some reason). Keep discussions to a minimum or use the forum instead.
+
+However, the easiest way to get an app included, updated or an error fixed is to provide the required metadata yourself by opening a merge request.
+
+## Merge Requests
+Please read through the [inclusion howto](https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Inclusion_How-To), the [inclusion policy](https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Inclusion_Policy) and our [fdroid manual](https://f-droid.org/manual/fdroid.html).
+
+This section includes some information on the fdroidserver repository as the tools contained in there can be used standalone to check and build local metadata files.
+
+### Setting up fdroidserver and build tools
+* Install [dependencies](https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidserver/blob/master/buildserver/cookbooks/fdroidbuild-general/recipes/default.rb).
+* Clone the [fdroidserver repo](https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidserver/).
+* Of course you also need to have the [Android SDK](https://developer.android.com/sdk/) and the [Android NDK](https://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/ndk/) installed, upated and in your PATH environment variable.
+* For gradle, you should download [recent and older versions](http://www.gradle.org/downloads) and set them up via [our gradle wrapper](https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidserver/tree/master/buildserver/cookbooks/gradle/recipes).
+
+### Setting up fdroiddata and submitting apps
+* [Register on GitLab](http://gitlab.com)
+* Visit and fork the [fdroiddata repository](https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/).
+* Clone your fdroiddata fork.
+* Copy fdroiddata/metadata/template or fdroiddata/metadata/template-minimal to fdroiddata/metadata/app.id.txt .
+* Update metadata/app.id.txt according to the [manual](https://f-droid.org/manual/html_node/Metadata.html).
+* If you have fdroidserver installed:
+ * Copy and adjust fdroidserver/examples/config.py to fdroiddata/config.py .
+ * Instead of copying a template you can run `fdroid import -u github-url` if the app is hosted on GitHub. 
+ * Run `fdroid checkupdates app.id`, `fdroid rewritemeta app.id` and `fdroid build -v -t -l app.id` before opening a merge request!
+* Use `git add`, `git commit` and `git push` to update your fork on GitLab. Please squash multiple commits into a single one per app. It's a good style to use a separate branch for each app and prefix commit messages with "Appname:". For this you might also want to look at the `fd-commit` command in the server repo.
+* Open a merge request via GitLab.