Contributing

June 9, 2025 · View on GitHub

Hi there! We're delighted that you'd like to contribute to this project. It has been generous collaboration from many people all over the world that has made it possible so far, and your help is key to keeping it great.

First of all, we would love to hear from you! We have no way of knowing who has discovered, explored, downloaded and tried Beat Link. So if you have, please write a quick note on the Beat Link Trigger Zulip channel to let us know! Even if it is only to explain why it didn’t quite work for you.

For more about how to find help, see Getting Help.

Contributions to this project are released to the public under the project’s open source license.

This project adheres to the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct. By participating, you are expected to uphold this code.

Getting started

Before you can start contributing to Beat Link, you'll need to set up your environment first. Fork and clone the repo and install Maven to install the project dependencies and manage builds. We find IntelliJ IDEA (even the free Community Edition) an incredibly productive environment for Java work, but use whatever IDE or editor works best for you (we always have GNU Emacs open too).

For testing you are going to want some Pro DJ Link hardware on your network, and a wired network is necessary for realistic performance. If you will be trying to analyze the protocols, you will probably want to invest in an inexpensive managed switch, to let you span (mirror) ports, so you can listen in on the traffic players and mixers send between themselves. The Netgear GS105Ev2 has worked great for us.

Important

Before doing any significant work, we strongly encourage you to discuss your ideas in the Zulip channel. This will help make sure you’re on the right track, could save you a lot of effort, and ensure alignment with the overall project philosophy and goals.

Code from AI / LLM Tools

If you are planning to contribute code, please refrain from copy and pasting it from “AI” code assistants and large language models. It is fine to use those as an inspiration, or examples of the ways something could be done, but always write your own code from scratch if you are going to submit it to the project.

Warning

Code from online coding assistants may be plagiarized from other projects with incompatible licenses (and there is no way to know), and may include subtle bugs. It is not suitable for submission to Deep Symmetry projects.

Giving back

Once you have something working you’d like to share, you can open a pull request.

Or if you simply have an idea, or something that you wish worked differently, feel free to discuss it in the Beat Link Trigger Zulip channel, and if directed to do so by the community there, open an issue.

Maintainers

Beat Link is primarily maintained by @brunchboy.

License

Distributed under the Eclipse Public License 2.0. By using this software in any fashion, you are agreeing to be bound by the terms of this license. You must not remove this notice, or any other, from this software. A copy of the license can be found in LICENSE.md within this project.