CONTRIBUTING

Contributing

Want to contribute? Great! You can do so through the standard GitHub pull request model. For large contributions we do encourage you to file a ticket in the GitHub issues tracking system prior to any code development to coordinate with the team early in the process. Coordinating up front helps to avoid frustration later on. Please properly document your code and follow the Google C++ Style Guide.

Your contribution must be licensed under the Apache-2.0 license, the license used by this project.

Sign your work

This project tracks patch provenance and licensing using a modified Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO; from OSDL) and Signed-off-by tags initially developed by the Linux kernel project.

Developer's Certificate of Origin.  Version 1.0

By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:

(a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I
    have the right to submit it under the "Apache License, Version 2.0"
    ("Apache-2.0"); or

(b) The contribution is based upon previous work that is covered by
    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 Apache-2.0 license;
    or

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

(d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution
    are public and that a record of the contribution (including all
    metadata and personal information I submit with it, including my
    sign-off) is maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed
    consistent with this project and the requirements of the Apache-2.0
    license or any open source license(s) involved, where they are
    relevant.

(e) I am granting the contribution to this project under the terms of
    Apache-2.0.

    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

With the sign-off in a commit message you certify that you authored the patch or otherwise have the right to submit it under an open source license. The procedure is simple: To certify above this package’s Developer’s Certificate of Origin 1.0 for your contribution just append a line

Signed-off-by: Random J Developer <random@developer.example.org>

to every commit message using your real name or your pseudonym and a valid email address.

If you have set your user.name and user.email git configs you can automatically sign the commit by running the git-commit command with the -s option. There may be multiple sign-offs if more than one developer was involved in authoring the contribution.

For a more detailed description of this procedure, please see SubmittingPatches which was extracted from the Linux kernel project, and which is stored in an external repository.

Individual vs. Corporate Contributors

Often employers or academic institution have ownership over code that is written in certain circumstances, so please do due diligence to ensure that you have the right to submit the code.

If you are a developer who is authorized to contribute to this package on behalf of your employer, then please use your corporate email address in the Signed-off-by tag. Otherwise please use a personal email address.