Update contribution guides and infrastructure files

.github/pull_request_template.md

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+# Prerequisite Checklist
+
+<!--
+Please mark items appropriately:
+-->
+
+- [ ] Read the [contribution guidelines](https://github.com/open-education-hub/ccas-internal/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#pull-requests) regarding submitting new changes to the project;
+- [ ] Tested your changes against relevant architectures and platforms;
+- [ ] Updated relevant documentation (if needed).
+
+## Description of changes
+
+<!--
+Please provide a detailed description of the changes made in this new PR.
+-->

.github/workflows/actions.yml

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ name: Linter Actions Workflow
 on:
   pull_request:
     branches:
-      - master
+      - main
 
 jobs:
   checkpatch:

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -1,14 +1,15 @@
 # Contributing
 
 These are recommendations when contributing to the contents of this repository.
-They consider contributions to both actual content (mostly Markdown) and support code (demo, lab activities) made via Git.
+They consider contributions to both actual content (mostly Markdown) and support code made via Git.
 
 ## First Steps
 
 Some good first steps and best practices when using Git are explained here:
-* the Git Immersion tutorial: https://gitimmersion.com/
-* the Atlassian tutorial: https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/learn-git-with-bitbucket-cloud
-* this blog post on the ROSEdu Techblog: https://techblog.rosedu.org/git-good-practices.html
+
+* the Git Immersion tutorial: <https://gitimmersion.com/>
+* the Atlassian tutorial: <https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/learn-git-with-bitbucket-cloud>
+* this blog post on the `ROSEdu Techblog`: <https://techblog.rosedu.org/git-good-practices.html>
 
 ## Language
 
@@ -30,16 +31,22 @@ Use phrases like "find the flag", "run this command", "download the tool".
 
 ## Images
 
+Use [draw.io](https://app.diagrams.net/) to create diagrams.
+If using external images / diagram, make sure they use a CC BY-SA license and give credits (mention author and / or add link to the image source).
+
+## Slides
+
+Slides are to be written in Markdown, using [`reveal-md`](https://github.com/webpro/reveal-md), itself based on [`reveal-js`](https://revealjs.com/).
+Use `reveal-md` and `reveal-js` specifics to split information in slides.
+Aim to make slides attractive, sleek and simple to follow.
+
 Images and diagrams would ideally be animated on slides.
-Aim to use reveal.js features to animate drawing of diagrams.
+Aim to use `reveal.js` features to animate drawing of diagrams.
 
-If reveal.js drawing is difficult, use [draw.io](https://app.diagrams.net/) to create diagrams.
+If `reveal.js` drawing is difficult, use [draw.io](https://app.diagrams.net/) to create diagrams.
 Ideally you would "animate" those diagrams by creating multiple incremental versions of the diagram and adding each to a slide;
 when browsing slides pieces of these diagrams will "appear" and complete the final image, rendering an animation-like effect.
 
-For text where no animation is required, use diagrams / images created with [draw.io](https://app.diagrams.net/).
-If using external images / diagram, make sure they use a CC BY-SA license and give credits (mention author and / or add link to the image source).
-
 ## Issues
 
 When opening an issue, please clearly state the problem.
@@ -64,8 +71,47 @@ If there are multiple commits belonging to a given change, please squash the com
 
 Also make sure one pull request covers only **one** topic.
 
+### Commits
+
+Before making a commit, configure your name and email locally using:
+
+```bash
+git config --global user.name "Your Name"
+git config --global user.email "[email protected]"
+```
+
+Then make sure the email you've just configured corresponds to the one you have [set on GitHub](https://docs.github.com/en/account-and-profile/setting-up-and-managing-your-personal-account-on-github/managing-email-preferences/adding-an-email-address-to-your-github-account).
+
+After this, make your changes, `git add` them and then commit them using `git commit -s`.
+Always sign your commits using the `-s` / `--signoff` arguments to `git commit`.
+This will add the following line at the end of the commit message:
+
+```text
+Signed-off-by: Your Name <[email protected]>
+```
+
+Notice that the details above are the name and email that you configured earlier.
+
+Now the `git commit` command will open your default editor and ask you to write a commit message.
+Prefix each commit message title with the chapter it belongs to: `software-stack`, `data`, `compute`, `io`, `app-interact` and the component: `lecture` / `lab`.
+An example of a prefix is `compute/lab:`.
+Following the prefix, write a short and expressive title on the first line.
 Use commit messages with verbs at imperative mood: "Add README", "Update contents", "Introduce feature".
-Prefix each commit message with the chapter it belongs to: `software-stack`, `data`, `compute`, `io`, `app-interact`.
-How a good commit message should look like: https://cbea.ms/git-commit/
 
-The use of `-s` / `--signoff` when creating a commit is optional, but strongly recommended.
+Leave an empty line, then add a relevant description of the changes made in that commit.
+This description should include why that change is needed (fixes a bug, improves something that was inefficient, etc.).
+Wrap the lines of this description to 75 characters.
+How a good commit message should look like: <https://cbea.ms/git-commit/>
+Below is an example of a good commit message:
+
+```text
+data/lab: Fix Makefile `CFLAGS` error
+
+`CFLAGS` was incorrectly set to optimise the code to the `-O3` level. This
+caused the function `vulnerable_func()` to be inlined into the caller
+`main()`, making it impossible to overwrite `main()`'s return address with
+that of `vulnerable_func()`. This commit fixes the issue by forcing the
+compiler to not optimise the code by replacing `-O3` with `-O0` in `CFLAGS`
+
+Signed-off-by: Your Name <[email protected]>
+```

COPYING.md

@@ -1,13 +1,13 @@
 # License
 
 The content of this repository is dual-licensed.
-Unless otherwise stated, text content and slides are licensed under the [Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).
-Unless otherwise stated, support code is licensed under the [3-Clause BSD license](https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause) (SPDX short identifier: BSD-3-Clause).
+Reading content and slides are licensed under the [Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).
+Support code is licensed under the [3-Clause BSD license](https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause) (SPDX short identifier: BSD-3-Clause).
 A copy of each license is below.
 
 Copy of CC BY-SA 4.0:
 
-```
+```text
 Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
 
 =======================================================================
@@ -449,7 +449,7 @@ Creative Commons may be contacted at creativecommons.org.
 
 Copy of BSD-3-Clause:
 
-```
+```text
 Copyright 2021 University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest
 
 Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without