Merge pull request #1009 from carmenbianca/contributing-scope

Improve CONTRIBUTING

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -15,16 +15,43 @@ via e-mail to one of the maintainers. General inquiries can be sent to
 Interaction within this project is covered by the
 [FSFE's Code of Conduct](https://fsfe.org/about/codeofconduct).
 
+## Scope and design goals of REUSE
+
+REUSE has a finite scope. The goal is to make upstream licensing **easy,
+comprehensive, unambiguous, and machine-readable**. Contributions which
+contradict the goals are unlikely to be accepted. Comprehensiveness is
+especially important; REUSE provides no real mechanism for excluding a file from
+REUSE compliance testing, and it is unlikely that such a mechanism will be
+added.
+
+Behaviour changes to linting are also unlikely to be accepted, even if they are
+good changes. The linting behaviour should always match the
+[REUSE Specification](https://reuse.software/spec/). If you think that the
+linting behaviour should change, you should open an issue on the
+[reuse-website](https://github.com/fsfe/reuse-website) repository.
+
+The linter does not accept any arguments or configurations which modify its
+behaviour in determining compliance. This is intentional.
+
 ## Pull requests
 
 Pull requests are generally welcome and encouraged, but please beware that they
-may be closed as out-of-scope or otherwise not aligned with the design goals. To
-be safe, open an issue and engage in dialogue before beginning to implement a
+may be closed for various reasons, such as:
+
+- The change is out-of-scope for REUSE.
+- The change does not align with the design goals of REUSE.
+- The change is good, but the maintenance burden is too heavy.
+
+To be safe, open an issue and engage in dialogue before beginning to implement a
 feature that may not be accepted.
 
 When making a pull request, don't hesitate to add yourself to the AUTHORS.rst
 file and the copyright headers of the files you touch.
 
+Every pull request should add an entry in `CHANGELOG.md`. Some exceptions apply,
+such as changes which are too tiny to be significant, certain refactorings, or
+fixes to pull requests which were already merged, but not yet released.
+
 ## Translation
 
 Translations are welcome at

README.md

@@ -273,6 +273,11 @@ requests, and pull requests. Even and especially when in doubt, feel free to
 open an issue with a question. Contributions of all types are welcome, and the
 development team is happy to provide guidance and support for new contributors.
 
+You should exercise some caution when opening a pull request to make changes
+which were not (yet) acknowledged by the team as pertinent. Such pull requests
+may be closed, leading to disappointment. To avoid this, please open an issue
+first.
+
 Additionally, the <[email protected]> mailing list is available for
 discussion and support related to the project.