Erlang/OTP

Erlang is a programming language used to build massively scalable soft
real-time systems with requirements on high availability. Some of its
uses are in telecom, banking, e-commerce, computer telephony and
instant messaging. Erlang's runtime system has built-in support for
concurrency, distribution and fault tolerance.

OTP is set of Erlang libraries and design principles providing
middle-ware to develop these systems. It includes its own distributed
database, applications to interface towards other languages, debugging
and release handling tools.

ERTS and BEAM

BEAM is the name of the virtual machine where all Erlang code is executed.
Every compiled Erlang file has the suffix .beam. The virtual machine
is sometimes referred to as the emulator.

ERTS is the Erlang Runtime System where the BEAM, kernel and
standard libraries amongst others are included.

More information can be found at [erlang.org] 1.

Building and Installing

Information on building and installing Erlang/OTP can be found
in the [$ERL_TOP/HOWTO/INSTALL.md] 5 document.

Contributing to Erlang/OTP

Here are the [instructions for submitting patches] 2.

In short:

• We prefer to receive proposed updates via email on the
  [erlang-patches] 3 mailing list or through a pull request.

• Pull requests will be handled once everyday and there will be
  essential testing before we will take a decision on the outcome
  of the request. If the essential testings fails, the pull request
  will be closed and you will have to fix the problem and submit another
  pull request when this is done.

• We merge all proposed updates to the pu (proposed updates) branch,
  typically within one working day.

• At least once a day, the contents of the pu branch will be built on
  several platforms (Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows, and so on) and
  automatic test suites will be run. We will email you if any problems are
  found.

• If a proposed change builds and passes the tests, it will be reviewed
  by one or more members of the Erlang/OTP team at Ericsson. The reviewer
  may suggest improvements that are needed before the change can be accepted
  and merged.

• Once or twice a week, a status email called ["What's cooking in Erlang/OTP"] 4
  will be sent to the [erlang-patches] 3 mailing list.

Copyright and License

%CopyrightBegin%

Copyright Ericsson AB 2010-2014. All Rights Reserved.

The contents of this file are subject to the Erlang Public License,
Version 1.1, (the "License"); you may not use this file except in
compliance with the License. You should have received a copy of the
Erlang Public License along with this software. If not, it can be
retrieved online at http://www.erlang.org/.

Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS"
basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See
the License for the specific language governing rights and limitations
under the License.

%CopyrightEnd%