Contribution Guidelines

This is not meant to be a strict set of rules, but merely a emphasized suggestion, a SVN etiquette if you might.

Developers without commit rights

Submit a new bug in trac and send a mail to the mailing list containing a brief explanation and a link to the bug report. If you receive no feedback in the course of 15 days try insisting with another mailing list message.

Patch file format

Now that we're using SVN, patches are already in "unified" format, so nothing is really needed. Just use:

 svn diff PATH > 0001-my-first-mod.patch

if you like to be helpful, you can add C function name with:

 svn diff -x -up > 0001-my-first-mod.patch

even more helpful is you to review the patch contents and check if there is no redundant stuff or useless white space changes, You can also provide a diffstat and add comments to the patch (before the patch itself). The process summary is:

 svn diff -x -up > 0001-my-first-mod.diff
 less 0001-my-first-mod.diff # review!!!
 $EDITOR 0001-my-first-mod.message # write your description
 cat 0001-my-first-mod.message > 0001-my-first-mod.patch
 diffstat 0001-my-first-mod.diff >> 0001-my-first-mod.patch
 cat 0001-my-first-mod.diff >> 0001-my-first-mod.patch
 mail 0001-my-first-mod.patch

It's good to keep 0001-my-first-mod.message as a subject line up to 72 chars, then a blank line and then the description body, breaking lines at 72chars (good for mail)

New developers WITH commit rights

Depending on the type of commit you intend to make there are two paths to follow. If you feel confident about your patch, be it because you are a confident person or because the patch fixes a trivial problem, go ahead with your commit. But be warned, developers constantly breaking the build will have their commit rights removed.

If you don't feel confident, probably because your patch implements new functionality or API changes, simply follow the regular path. Submit a new bug in trac and send a mail to the mailing list containing a brief explanation and a link to the bug report. If you receive no feedback in the course of 15 days you are free to commit it without fear.