X-Git-Url: http://demsky.eecs.uci.edu/git/?a=blobdiff_plain;ds=sidebyside;f=docs%2FDeveloperPolicy.html;h=144c55ac0d8a3ca7b4e1981a461f45993355ff8e;hb=ebb5a971d903aa4479bb2a21472597319a9b0086;hp=8561a7a4af32978b5c0d8e280dd0c7aedda3ebc2;hpb=8a9bd9298491f2249c2bf9921e7c751ce32136b1;p=oota-llvm.git diff --git a/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html b/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html index 8561a7a4af3..144c55ac0d8 100644 --- a/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html +++ b/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html @@ -6,45 +6,35 @@
-
-Contents- - |
+
+
This document contains the LLVM Developer Policy which defines the @@ -53,59 +43,43 @@ might arise from the distributed nature of LLVM's development. By stating the policy in clear terms, we hope each developer can know ahead of time what to expect when making LLVM contributions. -
-
-So that the policies defined in the next sections are clear, we first - define some terms here. -
This policy is also designed to accomplish the following objectives: +
This policy is aimed at frequent contributors to LLVM. People interested in + contributing one-off patches can do so in an informal way by sending them to + the + llvm-commits mailing list and engaging another developer to see it through + the process. + |
-
This section contains policies that pertain generally to LLVM developers. -
LLVM Developers are expected to meet the following obligations in order - for LLVM to maintain a high standard of quality.
+
This section contains policies that pertain to frequent LLVM + developers. We always welcome one-off patches from + people who do not routinely contribute to LLVM, but we expect more from + frequent contributors to keep the system as efficient as possible for + everyone. + Frequent LLVM contributors are expected to meet the following requirements in + order for LLVM to maintain a high standard of quality.
Developers should stay informed by reading at least the - llvmdev email list. If you are doing - anything more than just casual work on LLVM, it is highly suggested that you - also subscribe to the llvm-commits list and pay attention to changes being - made by others.
+ llvmdev + email list. If you are doing anything more than just casual work on LLVM, + it is suggested that you also subscribe to the + llvm-commits + list and pay attention to changes being made by others.We recommend that active developers register an email account with LLVM Bugzilla and preferably subscribe to the llvm-bugs @@ -113,349 +87,465 @@
When a developer begins a major new project with the aim of contributing - it back to LLVM, s/he should inform the community with an email to - the llvm-dev - email list, to the extent possible. The reason for this is to: -
The design of LLVM is carefully controlled to ensure that all the pieces - fit together well. If you plan to make a major change to the way LLVM works or - a major new extension, it is a good idea to get consensus with the development - community before you start working on it.
+ +When making a patch for review, the goal is to make it as easy for the + reviewer to read it as possible. As such, we recommend that you:
+svn diff -x -u+ or with the utility utils/mkpatch, which makes it easy to read the + diff.
When sending a patch to a mailing list, it is a good idea to send it as an + attachment to the message, not embedded into the text of the + message. This ensures that your mailer will not mangle the patch when it + sends it (e.g. by making whitespace changes or by wrapping lines).
LLVM has a code review policy. Code review is an excellent way to ensure - high quality in the software. The following policies apply:
+LLVM has a code review policy. Code review is one way to increase the + quality of software. We generally follow these policies:
Developers should participate in code reviews as both reviewers and + reviewees. If someone is kind enough to review your code, you should + return the favor for someone else. Note that anyone is welcome to review + and give feedback on a patch, but only people with Subversion write access + can approve it.
- - -LLVM uses an incremental development style and all developers are expected - to follow this practice. Incremental development is a big key to LLVM's - success and it is essential that developers submit incremental patches. The - following defines the incremental development approach:
-The minimum quality standards for any change to the main development - branch are:
-Additionally, the committer is responsible for addressing all of the - following items (preferably before submission):
+ +The LLVM Project relies on two features of its process to maintain rapid + development in addition to the high quality of its source base: the + combination of code review plus post-commit review for trusted maintainers. + Having both is a great way for the project to take advantage of the fact + that most people do the right thing most of the time, and only commit + patches without pre-commit review when they are confident they are + right.
+ +The trick to this is that the project has to guarantee that all patches + that are committed are reviewed after they go in: you don't want everyone + to assume someone else will review it, allowing the patch to go unreviewed. + To solve this problem, we have a notion of an 'owner' for a piece of the + code. The sole responsibility of a code owner is to ensure that a commit + to their area of the code is appropriately reviewed, either by themself or + by someone else. The current code owners are:
+Note that code ownership is completely different than reviewers: anyone can + review a piece of code, and we welcome code review from anyone who is + interested. Code owners are the "last line of defense" to guarantee that + all patches that are committed are actually reviewed.
+ +Being a code owner is a somewhat unglamorous position, but it is incredibly + important for the ongoing success of the project. Because people get busy, + interests change, and unexpected things happen, code ownership is purely + opt-in, and anyone can choose to resign their "title" at any time. For now, + we do not have an official policy on how one gets elected to be a code + owner. +
+Developers are required to create test cases for regressions and new - features and include them with their changes. The following policies - apply:
+Developers are required to create test cases for any bugs fixed and any new + features added. Some tips for getting your testcase approved:
Note that llvm/test is designed for regression and small feature tests + only. More extensive test cases (e.g., entire applications, benchmarks, + etc) should be added to the llvm-test test suite. The llvm-test + suite is for coverage (correctness, performance, etc) testing, not feature + or regression testing.
This section contains policies that pertain to submitting patches - to LLVM and committing code to the repository
-When submitting a patch, developers must follow these rules:
-- cvs diff -Ntdup -5or with the utility utils/mkpatch.
Before a patch is submitted for review, it should be tested to ensure - that:
-When a patch is ready to be submitted, these policies apply:
+The minimum quality standards that any change must satisfy before being + committed to the main development branch are:
Additionally, the committer is responsible for addressing any problems + found in the future that the change is responsible for. For example:
+We prefer for this to be handled before submission but understand that it + isn't possible to test all of this for every submission. Our nightly + testing + infrastructure normally finds these problems. A good rule of thumb is to + check the nightly testers for regressions the day after your change.
+ +Commits that violate these quality standards (e.g. are very broken) may + be reverted. This is necessary when the change blocks other developers from + making progress. The developer is welcome to re-commit the change after + the problem has been fixed.
After a patch has been submitted, these policies apply:
-+We grant commit access to contributors with a track record of submitting high +quality patches. If you would like commit access, please send an email to +Chris with the following information:
+ +Once you've been granted commit access, you should be able to check out an + LLVM tree with an SVN URL of "https://username@llvm.org/..." instead of the + normal anonymous URL of "http://llvm.org/...". The first time you commit + you'll have to type in your password. Note that you may get a warning from + SVN about an untrusted key, you can ignore this. To verify that your commit + access works, please do a test commit (e.g. change a comment or add a blank + line). Your first commit to a repository may require the autogenerated email + to be approved by a mailing list. This is normal, and will be done when + the mailing list owner has time.
+ +If you have recently been granted commit access, these policies apply:
+ +In any case, your changes are still subject to code +review (either before or after they are committed, depending on the nature +of the change). You are encouraged to review other peoples' patches as well, +but you aren't required to.
+After a patch has been committed, these policies apply:
+When a developer begins a major new project with the aim of contributing + it back to LLVM, s/he should inform the community with an email to + the llvmdev + email list, to the extent possible. The reason for this is to:
The design of LLVM is carefully controlled to ensure that all the pieces + fit together well and are as consistent as possible. If you plan to make a + major change to the way LLVM works or want to add a major new extension, it + is a good idea to get consensus with the development + community before you start working on it.
+ +Once the design of the new feature is finalized, the work itself should be + done as a series of incremental changes, not as + a long-term development branch.
+Commit access to the repository is granted according to this policy:
-Submitting patches to LLVM via the patch policy above will greatly - increase the chance that your request for commit access is granted. Getting - to know the members of the LLVM community (email, IRC, in person contact, - etc.) will also increase your chances.
- +In the LLVM project, we do all significant changes as a series of + incremental patches. We have a strong dislike for huge changes or + long-term development branches. Long-term development branches have a + number of drawbacks:
+ ++ To address these problems, LLVM uses an incremental development style and we + require contributors to follow this practice when making a large/invasive + change. Some tips:
+ +If you are interested in making a large change, and this scares you, please + make sure to first discuss the change/gather + consensus then ask about the best way to go about making + the change.
For those who have recently obtained commit access, the following policies - apply:
-We believe in correct attribution of contributions to + their contributors. However, we do not want the source code to be littered + with random attributions "this code written by J Random Guy" (this is noisy + and distracting. In practice, the revision control system keeps a perfect + history of who change what, and the CREDITS.txt file describes higher-level + contributions.
+ +Overall, please do not add contributor names to the source base.
We address here the issues of copyright and license for the LLVM project. - The object of the copyright and license is the LLVM source and documentation. +
This section addresses the issues of copyright, license and patents for + the LLVM project. Currently, the University of Illinois is the LLVM copyright holder and the terms of its license to LLVM users and developers is the University of - Illinois/NCSA Open Source License. -
NOTE: This section deals with legal matters but does not provide legal - advice. It is intended only as a general guideline.
+NOTE: This section deals with legal matters but does not provide + legal advice. We are not lawyers, please seek legal counsel from an + attorney.
The LLVM project believes in correct attribution of contributions to - their contributors, as follows:
--
However, for consistency and ease of management, the project requires the - copyright for all LLVM software to be held by a single copyright holder. - Although UIUC may assign the copyright of the software to another entity, - the intent for the project is to always have a single entity hold the copy - rights to LLVM at any given time. -
Having multiple copyright holders for various portions of LLVM is - problematic in the management of the software. Having a single copyright +
For consistency and ease of management, the project requires the + copyright for all LLVM software to be held by a single copyright holder: + the University of Illinois (UIUC).
+ ++ Although UIUC may eventually reassign the copyright of the software to another + entity (e.g. a dedicated non-profit "LLVM Organization") + the intent for the project is to always have a single entity hold the + copyrights to LLVM at any given time.
+ +We believe that having a single copyright holder is in the best interests of all developers and users as it greatly reduces the managerial burden for any kind of administrative or technical - decisions about LLVM.
+ decisions about LLVM. The goal of the LLVM project is to always keep the code + open and licensed under a very liberal license. +LLVM licensing decisions will be made by the LLVM Oversight Group. Any - issues, comments or suggestions with the licensing should be sent to the - LLVM Oversight Group.
-The LLVM Oversight Group intends to keep LLVM perpetually open source - and to use liberal open source licenses. The current license is the - University of Illinois Open Source License (see LICENSE.TXT), which boils +
We intend to keep LLVM perpetually open source + and to use a liberal open source license. The current license is the + + University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License, which boils down to this:
We believe this fosters the widest adoption of LLVM because it allows - commercial products to be derived from LLVM with few restrictions and - without a requirement for making any derived works also open source. We - suggest that you read the - License if - further clarification is needed.
+ +We believe this fosters the widest adoption of LLVM because it allows + commercial products to be derived from LLVM with few restrictions and + without a requirement for making any derived works also open source (i.e. + LLVM's license is not a "copyleft" license like the GPL). We suggest that you + read the License + if further clarification is needed.
+ +Note that the LLVM Project does distribute llvm-gcc, which is GPL. + This means that anything "linked" into llvm-gcc must itself be compatible + with the GPL, and must be releasable under the terms of the GPL. This implies + that any code linked into llvm-gcc and distributed to others may be subject + to the viral aspects of the GPL (for example, a proprietary code generator + linked into llvm-gcc must be made available under the GPL). This is not a + problem for code already distributed under a more liberal license (like the + UIUC license), and does not affect code generated by llvm-gcc. It may be a + problem if you intend to base commercial development on llvm-gcc without + redistributing your source code.
+ +We have no plans to change the license of LLVM. If you have questions + or comments about the license, please contact the LLVM Oversight Group.
+With regards to the LLVM copyright and licensing, developers agree to:
-To the best of our knowledge, LLVM does not infringe on any patents (we have + actually removed code from LLVM in the past that was found to infringe). + Having code in LLVM that infringes on patents would violate an important + goal of the project by making it hard or impossible to reuse the code for + arbitrary purposes (including commercial use).
+ +When contributing code, we expect contributors to notify us of any potential + for patent-related trouble with their changes. If you or your employer + own the rights to a + patent and would like to contribute code to LLVM that relies on it, we + require that + the copyright owner sign an agreement that allows any other user of LLVM to + freely use your patent. Please contact the oversight group for more + details.
This section contains some notes on policy topics that need to be - resolved and incorporated into the main body of the document above.
-With regards to the LLVM copyright and licensing, developers agree to + assign their copyrights to UIUC for any contribution made so that + the entire software base can be managed by a single copyright holder. This + implies that any contributions can be licensed under the license that the + project uses.
+ +When contributing code, you also affirm that you are legally entitled to + grant this copyright, personally or on behalf of your employer. If the code + belongs to some other entity, please raise this issue with the oversight + group before the code is committed.