contributing.xml   [plain text]

<chapter id="contributing">
<chapterinfo>
	&author.jelmer;
</chapterinfo>

<title>Contributing code</title>

<para>Here are a few tips and notes that might be useful if you are 
	interested in modifying samba source code and getting it into 
	samba's main branch.</para>

<variablelist>
	<varlistentry>
		<term>Retrieving the source</term>

		<listitem>
		<para>In order to contribute code to samba, make sure you have the 
			latest source. Retrieving the samba source code from CVS is 
			documented in the appendix of the Samba HOWTO Collection.
		</para>
		</listitem>
	</varlistentry>

	<varlistentry>
		<term>Discuss large modifications with team members</term>
		<listitem>
		<para>Please discuss large modifications you are going to make 
		with members of the samba team. Some parts of the samba code 
		have one or more 'owners' - samba developers who wrote most 
		of the code and maintain it. 
		</para>

		<para>This way you can avoid spending your time and effort on 
		something that is not going to make it into the main samba branch 
		because someone else was working on the same thing or because your 
		implementation is not the correct one.
		</para>
		</listitem>
	</varlistentry>

	<varlistentry>
		<term>Patch format</term>
		<listitem>
		<para>Patches to the samba tree should be in unified diff format, 
			e.g. files generated by <userinput>diff -u</userinput>. 
		</para>

		<para>If you are modifying a copy of samba you retrieved from CVS, 
		you can easily generate a diff file of these changes by running 
		<userinput>cvs diff -u</userinput>.</para>			
		</listitem>
	</varlistentry>

	<varlistentry>
		<term>Points of attention when modifying samba source code</term>
		<listitem><para>
		<simplelist>
		<member>Don't simply copy code from other places and modify it until it
		works. Code needs to be clean and logical. Duplicate 
		code is to be avoided.</member>
		<member>Test your patch. It might take a while before one of us looks 
		at your patch so it will take longer before your patch when your patch 
		needs to go thru the review cycle again.</member>
		<member>Don't put seperate patches in one large diff file. This makes 
		it harder to read, understand and test the patch. You might 
		also risk not getting a good patch committed because you mixed it 
		with one that had issues. </member>
		<member>Make sure your patch complies to the samba coding style as 
 		suggested in the coding-suggestions chapter. </member>
		</simplelist>
		</para>
		</listitem>
	</varlistentry>

	<varlistentry>
		<term>Sending in bugfixes</term>
		<listitem>
		<para>Bugfixes to bugs in samba should be submitted to samba's
		<ulink url="https://bugzilla.samba.org/">bugzilla system</ulink>, 
		along with a description of the bug.
		</para>
		</listitem>
	</varlistentry>

	<varlistentry>
		<term>Sending in feature patches</term>
		<listitem>
		<para>Send feature patches along with a description of what the 
		patch is supposed to do to the 
		<ulink url="mailto:samba-technical@samba.org">Samba-technical mailinglist</ulink> and possibly to a samba team member who is (one of the) 'owners'
		of the code you made modifications to. We are all busy people 
		so everybody tends to 'let one of the others handle it'. If nobody 
		responded to your patch for a week, try to send it again until you 
		get a response from one of us.
		</para></listitem>
	</varlistentry>

	<varlistentry>
		<term>Feedback on your patch</term>
		<listitem>
		<para>One of the team members will look at your patch and either 
		commit your patch or give comments why he won't apply it. In the 
		latter case you can fix your patch and re-send it until 
		your patch is approved.</para>
		</listitem>
	</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

</chapter>