This is the developers' hint guide.

If you plan on working on the icqlib project, here are some tips on
how to avoid unnecessary breakage, make your development easier and my
job of merging your code easier, I find them useful.

o  Ask first. If your changes are major, or could possibly break
   existing code, you should always ask. If your change is minor and
   you've been working on icqlib for a while it probably isn't
   necessary to ask. But when in doubt, ask. Even if your change is
   correct, somebody may know a better way to do things.

   If you are making changes to icqlib project, you should be
   subscribed to icqlib-dev@lists.sourceforge.net. (Subscription
   address: icqlib-dev-request@lists.sourceforge.net) This is a good
   place to ask about intended changes.

o  There must be a ChangeLog for every commit. (If you discover that
   you only committed half the files you meant to and need to fix that
   up, or something, you don't need a new ChangeLog entry. But in
   general, ChangeLog entries are mandatory.) Changes with out
   ChangeLog entries will be reverted.

o  Every fully finished commit should not break compilation of
   icqlib. To be sure it wouldn't, just recompile it before commiting
   your local changes to the repository. You may want to run
   "make clean all" for this. If your changes touches automake/autoconf
   stuff, run "make distclean && ./configure && make".

o  Try to keep the indenting style as it is currently! If you are
   using smart editor like emacs or Xemacs which understand commands
   enclosed in -*- at the top of the file, you already can use
   editor's indentation. These commands tells emacs to use NO
   tabulations for indentation, and indent code at 2 characters. Keep
   it in mind when you don't use emacs or you're creating a new file.

   You can add a new style in emacs. Put this few lines to your
   ~/.emacs file:

   (c-add-style "kicq"
                '((c-basic-offset . 2)
                  (c-offsets-alist
                   (substatement-open . 0)
                   (case-label . +))))

   To enable this indentation style when editing icqlib sources run
   this:

   `M-x c-set-style <RET> kicq <RET>'

   To make this style your default style put this lines to your
   ~/.emacs file:

   (add-hook 'c-mode-common-hook
             '(lambda ()
                (c-set-style "kicq")
                (setq tab-width 2)
                (setq indent-tabs-mode nil)))

o  If you are going to be changing many files in an experimental
   fashion, it probably is a good idea to create a separate branch for
   your changes.

o  Run "make depend" if you modify the source code structure (e.g. you
   add/remove include files).  It will help you to get an accurate
   compilation.

   It's recommended that you use GNU Make (if you want to use the
   depend and include features).

o  This code is distributed under the GNU General Public License and
   keep this in mind when adding code to the program.

o  If at all possible, please use CVS to get the latest development
   version of icqlib. You can do the following to get icqlib from
   anonymous CVS server:

   $ export CVSROOT=":pserver:anonymous@cvs.icqlib.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/icqlib"
   $ cvs login
     (there is no password, just hit return)
   $ cvs -z3 checkout icqlib

   CVSROOT for developers CVS server is different. If you are
   developer of icqlib and can't remeber it, let me know.

o  To compile a CVS version of icqlib on your system, you will need to
   take several steps to setup the tree for compilation. You can do
   all these steps at once by running:

   $ make -f Makefile.cvs

   The above command create the "configure" script. Now you can run
   the configure script to create all the Makefiles.

o  Please submit patches directly to me: denis@null.net. All kinds of
   contributions are accepted.

Denis V. Dmitrienko <denis@null.net>
Created:  06 Oct 1999
Modified: 22 Jul 2000