Development: How to submit patches

From LinuxTVWiki
Revision as of 21:38, 17 January 2009 by CityK (talk | contribs) (minor changes)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Patch Preparation

Patches should be created against the master V4L-DVB mercurial tree; for instructions on obtaining these sources, see How to build from Mercurial.

For general references on how to develop a Linux kernel driver module, take a look at the Index of Documentation for People Interested in Writing and/or Understanding the Linux Kernel.

Post your patches to the linux-media mailing list for review and testing. Subscription to the mailing list is recommended, though it is not required.

Follow the guidelines in Submitting Patches (cf. jgarzik's version), including:

  • Verify best-practice kernel coding style
  • Use [PATCH] in the subject line to get attention
  • Explain what the patch does and to what hardware it applies
  • Document your work where appropriate (i.e. in the form of patches to the Documentation/video4linux or Documentation/dvb files)
  • Add a Signed-off-by: Your name <name@yoursite.com> as a Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1
  • Fix any problems and repeat until everyone is happy ;)
  • Send the patch inline, not as an attachment (unless asked to do so otherwise)

Hint: There is also a checklist for patch submission

When your patch is initially accepted, it will first be applied to the main V4L-DVB mercurial tree. Once tested and integrated, patches are merged into a git tree by the V4L-DVB maintainer and periodically pulled by Linus.