Contribution

Revision as of 09:12, 14 October 2011

Contributing to packages

Signed-off-by

The Mer project uses the signed-off-by language and process, used by the Linux kernel, to give us a clear chain of trust for every patch received.

Linux Kernel Certificate of Origin v 1.1
"By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:

The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I have the right to submit it under the open source license indicated in the file; or

The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source license and I have the
right under that license to submit that work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part by me, under the same open source license 
(unless I am permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated in the file; or

The contribution was provided directly to me by some other person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified it.

I understand and agree that this project and the contribution are public and that a record of the contribution (including all personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with this project or the open source license(s) involved."

We have the same requirements for using the signed-off-by process as the Linux kernel has.

In short, you need to include a signed-off-by tag in every patch:

Signed-off-by: this is a developer's certification that he or she has the right to submit the patch for inclusion into the project. It is an agreement to the Developer's Certificate of Origin (above). Code without a proper signoff cannot be merged into the mainline.

Initial setup

Mer uses the Gerrit code review system and has all packages in the Core stored within git repositories.

First thing you should do is to register yourself on the Mer Gerrit and assign yourself a username, in the following referred to as USERNAME. You can use a Google account or OpenID to authenticate yourself.

You then need to generate yourself a SSH key and upload it on the Gerrit SSH keys page

Making changes

With the following command, pick out a package you'd like to contribute to - in the following denoted as REPO.

ssh -p 29418 USERNAME@monster.tspre.org gerrit ls-projects

Prominent examples are:

mer/release-tools - Release tools and fakeobs

mer/project-core - Project core description, configurations and package contents (like what git corresponds to what revision)

Then check out the git repository:

git clone ssh://USERNAME@monster.tspre.org:29418/REPO

Now do your changes to the repository as if you were working with a git repository, git add/rm/commit. When committing, remember to add '-s' option - this adds a Signed-off-by line and is required for Mer contribution and Gerrit will not accept patches without.

When your change is ready for commit:

git push origin HEAD:refs/for/master

This will now give you a review URL that you should follow for reviews.

Reviewing

You can help reviewing patches for Mer packages on the the Mer Gerrit. Click "All" -> "Open" to see what patches are currently proposed.