# Releases, licence and contributing

> How versions ship and update themselves, where the changelog lives, what the licence allows, and how to contribute.

Source: https://baalda.com/docs/releases
Site: Baalda, https://baalda.com

## How a release reaches you

A version tag builds signed installers for macOS, Windows and Linux and publishes them. The desktop app then updates itself: it checks, downloads, installs and restarts at a quiet moment, and only shows an Update required screen if that fails. After a restart, What's New lists what changed in the version you got. The current version is 0.1.82.

> A release ships silently when it has no release notes of its own. Every app still installs it, there is simply nothing worth interrupting you for.

## Where to read what changed

- Release notes, written for the person who just got the update, are the GitHub release body and the in-app What's New.
- The changelog in the repository is the developer-facing record, including what is merged but not yet released.

## Licence

Baalda is open source under the Apache License 2.0. Use it, self-host it, modify it and build commercial products on it. One exception: the `ee/` directory holds future commercial-only features under a separate licence. Everything else, the entire core, is Apache-2.0.

The Baalda name and brand are trademarks and are not covered by the code licence. Fork the code freely, and give your version its own name.

## Contributing

- Contributions are under the same licence, with no contributor agreement to sign. A sign-off is appreciated but not required.
- For anything beyond a small fix, open an issue first. Some of the invariants in this architecture are load-bearing and a short discussion saves rework.
- Read the architectural overview in the repository before diving in.

- [Architecture](/docs/architecture): The invariants worth knowing before you change anything.
- [Security](/docs/security): How to report a vulnerability privately.