Table of Contents
The Apache HBase project welcomes contributions to all aspects of the project, including the documentation. In HBase, documentation includes the following areas, and probably some others:
The HBase Reference Guide (this book)
The HBase websitee
The HBase Wiki
API documentation
Command-line utility output and help text
Web UI strings, explicit help text, context-sensitive strings, and others
Log messages
Comments in source files, configuration files, and others
Localization of any of the above into target languages other than English
No matter which area you want to help out with, the first step is almost always to download (typically by cloning the Git repository) and familiarize yourself with the HBase source code. The only exception in the list above is the HBase Wiki, which is edited online. For information on downloading and building the source, see Chapter 18, Building and Developing Apache HBase.
The HBase Wiki is not well-maintained and much of its content has been moved into the HBase Reference Guide (this guide). However, some pages on the Wiki are well maintained, and it would be great to have some volunteers willing to help out with the Wiki. To request access to the Wiki, register a new account at https://wiki.apache.org/hadoop/Hbase?action=newaccount. Contact one of the HBase committers, who can either give you access or refer you to someone who can.