# How can I help?

You can help in numerous ways. This document should give you an overview of what
is possible and how you can get involved. It will **not** give you all information
you need to successfully contribute to avoid content duplication between this
document and our [documentation](https://ipfire.org/docs). Instead, it should guide you
to the right places to look for further information.

## Development

All information is available in the [development section](https://www.ipfire.org/docs/devel)
of our documentation. The following is a very short overview of the most important topics.

### Contact

We use the mailing list `<development@lists.ipfire.org>` for our communication. For the
list archive and registration, see [here](http://lists.ipfire.org/mailman/listinfo/development).

### Source Code

We use our own infrastructure for code hosting, accessible at `git.ipfire.org`. The
GitHub repositories are **only** mirrors of `git.ipfire.org`, available as a courtesy
to the internet community.

### How to build the distribution?

In order to contribute, you certainly need to build the distribution at some point.
See [here](https://www.ipfire.org/docs/devel/ipfire-2-x/build-howto) for a long guide
how to do that.

### Reporting bugs

We have a bug tracker located [here](https://bugzilla.ipfire.org/). Further
information can be found in our [documentation](https://www.ipfire.org/docs/devel/bugzilla). We do
**not** use GitHub for tracking bugs.

### Contribute changes to the source code

Unfortunately, we do not accept GitHub pull requests. Instead, we are working with patches
which are sent to our mailing list `<development@lists.ipfire.org>`. This process might
be a bit tricky in the beginning. That's why you can find more information how to do
this [here](https://www.ipfire.org/docs/devel/submit-patches).