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+<chapter id="howitworks">
+<title>How it works</title>
+
+<para>
+In this chapter, we'll try to explain how autoepatch works, and how to
+extend it to patch and fix new problems. The reason to provide a
+throughout documentation about this is to make the maintainership of
+autoepatch simpler, so that if the developers currently involved in
+its writing would not be available, newcomers won't have to read all
+the code to find how it actually works.
+</para>	
+
+<sect1 id="concepts">
+<title>Concepts</title>
+
+<para>
+There aren't many concepts to describe on autoepatch because it is,
+basically, a simple set of scripts. The definitions that will be given
+here are not even proper "concepts" but this section is intented to
+clear up the terminology used, so that there can't be misunderstanding
+in the next sections and chapters.
+</para>
+
+<variablelist>
+  <varlistentry>
+    <term>patchset</term>
+    <listitem>
+
+    <para>
+    With this term, the documentation will refer to a set of scripts
+    and actual patches, the base element handled by autoepatch itself.
+    Despite the name used seem to limit a patchset to just patches,
+    it's well possible that a patchset has no actual ".patch" file,
+    and instead consist of a single shell script that describes the
+    changes to apply to targets.
+    </para>
+
+    <para>
+    The patchsets can be found in the repository inside the patches
+    directory, or for the installed copy in
+    /usr/share/autoepatch/patches
+      <footnote><para>
+      For alternative prefixes support, see <xref
+      linkend="prefixsupport" />.
+      </para></footnote>
+    </para>
+
+    </listitem>
+  </varlistentry>
+
+  <varlistentry>
+    <term>target</term>
+    <listitem>
+    
+    <para>
+    Under this name we consider a file, or a directory, on which the
+    patchset applies. When the target is a directory, ad the patchset
+    contains actual patches, the paths inside the patches should refer
+    to the direct name of the files starting from the target directory
+    (-p0 option to gpatch); when the target is a file instead, the
+    patch will apply directly over the file. When instead the patchset
+    consist of a function (or a series of functions), the target is
+    passed as parameter, whichever the type it is.
+    </para>
+
+    <para>
+    For more informations about target, look at <xref
+    linkend="writingpatchsets" />.
+    </para>
+    
+    </listitem>
+  </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+
+</sect1>
+
+<sect1 id="prefixsupport">
+<title>Alternative prefixes support</title>
+
+<para>
+</para>
+
+</sect1>
+
+</chapter>