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How to contribute a patch to Samba
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Simple, just make the code change, and email it as either a "diff -u"
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change, or as a "git format-patch" change against the original source
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code to samba-technical@samba.org, or attach it to a bug report at
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http://bugzilla.samba.org
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For larger code changes, breaking the changes up into a set of simple
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patches, each of which does a single thing, are much easier to review.
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Patch sets like that will most likely have an easier time being merged
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into the Samba code than large single patches that make lots of
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changes in one large diff.
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Ownership of the contributed code
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Samba is a project with distributed copyright ownership, which means
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we prefer the copyright on parts of Samba to be held by individuals
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rather than corporations if possible. There are historical legal
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reasons for this, but one of the best ways to explain it is that it's
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much easier to work with individuals who have ownership than corporate
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legal departments if we ever need to make reasonable compromises with
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people using and working with Samba.
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We track the ownership of every part of Samba via git, our source code
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control system, so we know the provenance of every piece of code that
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is committed to Samba.
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So if possible, if you're doing Samba changes on behalf of a company
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who normally owns all the work you do please get them to assign
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personal copyright ownership of your changes to you as an individual,
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that makes things very easy for us to work with and avoids bringing
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corporate legal departments into the picture.
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If you can't do this we can still accept patches from you owned by
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your employer under a standard employment contract with corporate
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copyright ownership. It just requires a simple set-up process first.
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We use a process very similar to the way things are done in the Linux
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kernel community, so it should be very easy to get a sign off from
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your corporate legal department. The only changes we've made are to
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accommodate the licenses we use, which are GPLv3 and LGPLv3 (or later)
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whereas the Linux kernel uses GPLv2.
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The process is called signing.
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Once you have permission to contribute to Samba from
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your employer, simply email a copy of the following text
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from your corporate email address to contributing@samba.org
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------------------------------------------------------------
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Samba Developer's Certificate of Origin. Version 1.0
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By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:
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(a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I
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have the right to submit it under the appropriate
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version of the GNU General Public License; or
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(b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best
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of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source
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license and I have the right under that license to submit that
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work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part
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by me, under the GNU General Public License, in the
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appropriate version; or
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(c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other
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person who certified (a) or (b) and I have not modified
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(d) I understand and agree that this project and the
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contribution are public and that a record of the
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contribution (including all metadata and personal
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information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is
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maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed
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consistent with the Samba Team's policies and the
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requirements of the GNU GPL where they are relevant.
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(e) I am granting this work to this project under the terms of both
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the GNU General Public License and the GNU Lesser General Public
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License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version
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3 of these Licenses, or (at the option of the project) any later
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-3.0.html
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------------------------------------------------------------
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We will maintain a copy of that email as a record that you have the
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rights to contribute code to Samba under the required licenses whilst
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working for the company where the email came from.
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Then when sending in a patch via the normal mechanisms described
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above, add a line that states:
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Signed-off-by: Random J Developer <random@developer.example.org>
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using your real name and the email address you sent the original email
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you used to send the Samba Developer's Certificate of Origin to us
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(sorry, no pseudonyms or anonymous contributions.)
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That's it ! Such code can then quite happily contain changes that have
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copyright messages such as :
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(C) Example Corporation.
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and can be merged into the Samba codebase in the same way as patches
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from any other individual. You don't need to send in a copy of the
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Samba Developer's Certificate of Origin for each patch, or inside each
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patch. Just the sign-off message is all that is required once we've
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received the initial email.
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Have fun and happy Samba hacking !