Richard Stallman and other GNU Project volunteers wrote these standards to ensure the GNU system remains clean, consistent, and easy to install while serving as a guide for writing portable, robust, and reliable programs. The document provides extensive guidelines on program design, C programming conventions (such as formatting and naming), documentation requirements using Texinfo, release processes including Makefile conventions, and legal considerations regarding free software and trademarks.
- It advises against referring to Unix source code or proprietary programs during development.
- Developers are encouraged to use `gettext` for internationalization to facilitate translation into different languages.
- The standards recommend providing both a short `--help` description and the standard `--version` output for command-line utilities.
- To support staged installs, developers should implement `DESTDIR` in their Makefiles.
- It advises against referring to Unix source code or proprietary programs during development.
- Developers are encouraged to use `gettext` for internationalization to facilitate translation into different languages.
- The standards recommend providing both a short `--help` description and the standard `--version` output for command-line utilities.
- To support staged installs, developers should implement `DESTDIR` in their Makefiles.
