Add document on contributing code to samba

(This used to be commit 15ab9f350cea6a2a9bfe49491816ae60e5fd9d7c)

2 files changed, 108 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/docbook/devdoc/contributing.xml b/docs/docbook/devdoc/contributing.xml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..d0fb1d41a3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/docbook/devdoc/contributing.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,106 @@
+<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>
+	</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>
+	</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>
diff --git a/docs/docbook/devdoc/dev-doc.xml b/docs/docbook/devdoc/dev-doc.xml
index 26374f7f39..0ed4275972 100644
--- a/docs/docbook/devdoc/dev-doc.xml
+++ b/docs/docbook/devdoc/dev-doc.xml
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
 <!ENTITY rpc-plugin SYSTEM "rpc_plugin.xml">
 <!ENTITY modules SYSTEM "modules.xml">
 <!ENTITY packagers SYSTEM "packagers.xml">
+<!ENTITY contributing SYSTEM "contributing.xml">
 ]>
 
 <book id="Samba-Developers-Guide">
@@ -76,5 +77,6 @@ url="http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.txt">http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.txt</u
 &modules;
 &rpc-plugin;
 &packagers;
+&contributing;
 
 </book>