summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html
blob: 78c0fb9a3815f32c85596b9cf6de4c191060cc38 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
                      "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
  <title>LLVM Developer Policy</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="llvm.css" type="text/css">
</head>
<body>
  <div class="doc_warning">DRAFT Only. DRAFT Only. DRAFT Only. DRAFT Only.</div>
      
<div class="doc_title">LLVM Developer Policy</div>
<table class="layout"><tr class="layout"><td class="layout">
<h2>Contents</h2>
<ol>
  <li><a href="#overview">Overview</a></li>
  <li><a href="#terms">Terminology</a></li>
  <li><a href="#candl">Copyright and License</a>
  <ol>
    <li><a href="#copyright">Copyright</a></li>
    <li><a href="#license">License</a></li>
    <li><a href="#devagree">Developer Agreements</a></li>
  </ol></li>
  <li><a href="#general">General Policies</a>
  <ol>
    <li><a href="#informed">Stay Informed</a> </li>
    <li><a href="#newwork">Starting New Work</a></li>
    <li><a href="#reviews">Code Reviews</a></li>
    <li><a href="#incremental">Incremental Development</a></li>
    <li><a href="#quality">Quality</a></li>
    <li><a href="#testcases">Test Cases</a></li>
  </ol></li>
  <li><a href="#patches">Patch Policies</a>
  <ol>
    <li><a href="#p_form">Patch Form</a></li>
    <li><a href="#p_testing">Patch Testing</a></li>
    <li><a href="#p_submission">Patch Submission</a></li>
    <li><a href="#p_after">After Submission</a></li>
    <li><a href="#c_access">Obtaining Commit Access</a></li>
    <li><a href="#c_new">New Committers</a></li>
  </ol></li>
</ol>
<div class="doc_author">Written by LLVM Oversight Team</div>
</td><td class="layout">

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_section"><a name="overview">Overview</a></div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>This document contains the LLVM Developer Policy which defines the
  project's policy towards developer's and their contributions. The intent of 
  this policy is to eliminate mis-communication, rework, and confusion that 
  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.</p>
</div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_section"><a name="terms">Terminology</a></div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>So that the policies defined in the next sections are clear, we first
  define some terms here.</p>
  <dl>
    <dt><a name="t_change">Change</a></dt>
    <dd>Any modification to LLVM including documentation, tests, build system,
    etc. either in <a href="#t_patch">patch</a> or 
    <a href="#t_commit">commit</a> form.</dd>
    <dt><a name="t_commit">Commit</a><dt>
    <dd>A <a href="t_change">change</a> submitted directly to LLVM software
    respository via the <tt>cvs commit</tt> command.</dd>
    <dt><a name="t_developer">Developer</a></dt>
    <dd>Anyone who submits a <a href="#t_change">change</a> to LLVM.</dd>
    <dt><a name="t_inrement">Increment</a></dt>
    <dd>A <a href="#t_change">change</a> or set of changes, whether by
    <a href="#t_patch">patch</a> or <a href="#t_commit">commit</a>, that are 
    related by a single common purpose. Increments are atomic as they 
    leave LLVM in a stable state (both compiling and working properly).</dd> 
    <dt><a name="t_must">Must</a></dt>
    <dd>When used in a policy statement, the term <i>must</i> implies a
    non-optional requirement on the developer.</dd>
    <dt><a name="t_patch">Patch</a></dt>
    <dd>A <a href="#t_change">change</a> submitted by email in patch (diff) 
    format generated by the <tt>cvs diff</tt> command.</dd>
    <dt><a name="t_should">Should</a></dt>
    <dd>When used in a policy statement, the term <i>should</i> implies a
    recommended but optional requirement on the developer.</dd>
  </dl>
</div>

</td></tr></table>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_section"><a name="candl">Copyright and License</a></div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>We address here the issues of copyright and license for the LLVM project.
  A copyright is literally the "right to copy". It is a set of exclusive rights
  granted to a party regulating the particular expression of information.
  In this case, the information is LLVM.  A license is something granted by a
  copyright holder to other parties that controls the use of the information
  by them. 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 Open Source License (see LICENSE.txt).</p>
</div>
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="copyright">Copyright</a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>The LLVM project believes in correct attribution of contributions to 
  their contributors. Developers should, therefore, place their name at the 
  top of any source file they originate and list their contributions in the
  CREDITS.TXT file. Furthermore, correct attribution of submitted patches 
  should be made in the commit comments.</p>
  <p>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.
  <p>Having multiple copyright holders for various portions of LLVM is
  problematic in the management of the software. 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.</p>
</div>
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="license">License</a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>LLVM licensing decisions will be made by the LLVM Oversight Group. Any
  issues, comments or suggestions with the licensing should be sent to 
  <a href="mailto:oversight@llvm.org">oversight@llvm.org</a>.</p>
  <p>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
  down to this:</p>
  <ul>
    <li>You can freely distribute LLVM.</li>
    <li>You must retain the copyright notice if you redistribute.</li>
    <li>Binaries derived from LLVM must reproduce the copyright notice.</li>
    <li>You can't use our names to promote your LLVM derived products.</li>
    <li>There's no warranty on LLVM at all.</li>
  </ul>
  <p>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. The 
  intent of the license is to let people use LLVM freely with only the
  obligation to be honest about where it came from.</p>
</div>
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsection"><a name="devagree">Developer Agreements</a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>With regards to the LLVM copyright and licensing, developer's agree to:</p>
  <ul>
    <li>give up their copy rights to any contribution made so that the entire 
    software base can be managed by a single copyright holder.</li>
    <li>allow their contribution(s) to be licensed as open source by the then
    current or subsequent license chosen by the LLVM Oversight Group.</li>
    <li>not make LLVM available under any other licensing agreement.</li>
  </ul>
</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_section"><a name="general">General Policies</a></div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>This section contains policies that pertain generally to LLVM developers. 
  <p>LLVM Developers are expected to meet the following obligations in order 
  for LLVM to maintain a high standard of quality<p>
</div>

<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="informed">Stay Informed</a> </div>
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>Developers should stay informed by reading at least the 
  <a href="mailto:llvmdev@llvm.org">llvmdev</a> 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.</p>
  <p>Active developers must register an email account with bugzilla 
  (<a href="http://llvm.org/bugs/">http://llvm.org/bugs/</a>) and preferably
  subscribe to the llvm-bugs email list to keep track of bugs occuring in
  LLVM.</p>
</div>

<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="newwork">Starting New Work</a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>When a developer begins new work with the aim of contributing it back to
  LLVM, s/he must inform the community with an email to llvm-dev email list, 
  to the extent possible. The reason for this is to:
  <ul>
    <li>keep the community informed about future changes to LLVM, </li>
    <li>avoid duplication of effort by having multiple parties working on the
    same thing and not knowing about it, and</li>
    <li>ensure that any issues around the proposed work are discussed and
    resolved before any significant work is accomplished.</li>
  </ul>
</div>

<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="reviews">Code Reviews</a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>LLVM has a code review policy. Code review is an excellent way to ensure
  high quality in the software. The following policies apply:</p>
  <ol>
    <li>All developers are required to have any significant changes reviewed 
    before they are committed to the repository.</li>
    <li>Code reviews are conducted by email.</li>
    <li>Code can be reviewed either before it is committed or after.</li>
    <li>The developer responsible for a code change is also responsible for
    making all necessary review changes.</li>
    <li>Developers should participate in code reviews as both a reviewer and 
    a reviewee. We don't have a dedicated team of reviewers. If someone is
    kind enough to review your code, you should return the favor for someone 
    else.</li>
  </ol>
</div>

<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="incremental">Incremental Development</a>
</div>
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>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:</p>
  <ol>
    <li>The first task is to define the increment and get consensus (with the
    LLVM development community) on what the end goal of the change is. Making 
    random small changes that go nowhere is not useful for anyone.</li>
    <li>An increment is the smallest patch size necessary to effect one change 
    in LLVM.</li>
    <li>Increments can be stand alone (e.g. to fix a bug), or part of a planned
    series of increments towards some development goal.</li>
    <li>Increments should be kept as small as possible. This simplifies your 
    work (into a logical progression), simplifies code review and reduces the
    chance that you will get negative feedback on the change. Small increments
    also facilitate the maintenance of a high quality code base.</li>
  </ol>
</div>

<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="quality">Quality</a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>The minimum quality standards for any change to the main development 
  branch are:</p>
  <ol>
    <li>Code must adhere to the 
    <a href="CodingStandards.html">LLVM Coding Standards</a>.</li>
    <li>Code must compile cleanly (no errors, no warnings) on at least one 
    platform.</li>
    <li>Code must pass the deja gnu (llvm/test) test suite.</li>
    <li>
  </ol>
  <p>Additionally, the committer is responsible for all of the following items.
  It is considered significantly preferable for all of these items to be 
  accounted for <i>before</i> the code is submitted for review or committed.</p>
  <ol>
    <li>Code must compile cleanly on all platforms.</li>
    <li>Code must pass the <tt>llvm-test</tt> test suite including 
    SPEC CINT2000, SPEC CFP2000, SPEC CINT2006, and SPEC CFP2006.</li>
    <li>The changesat must not cause performance or correctness regressions 
    for the LLVM tools.</li>
    <li>The changes must not cause performance or correctness regressions in 
    code compiled with LLVM on all applicable targets.</li>
  </ol>
</div>

<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="testcases">Test Cases</a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>Developers are required to create test cases for regressions and new
  features and include them with their changes. The following policies
  apply:</p>
  <ol>
    <li>All feature and regression test cases must be added to the 
    <tt>llvm/test</tt> directory. The appropriate subdirectory should be 
    selected (see the <a href="TestingGuide.html">Testing Guide</a> for 
    details.</li>
    <li>Test cases should be written in LLVM assembly language unless the
    feature or regression being tested requires another language.</li>
    <li>Test cases, especially for regressions, should be as reduced as 
    possible, preferably by 
    <a href="CommandGuide/html/bugpoint.html">bugpoint</a>.  It is unacceptable 
    to place an entire failing program into <tt>llvm/test</tt> as this creates
    a <i>time-to-test</i> burden on all developers. Keep them short!</li>
    <li>More extensive test cases (applications, benchmarks, etc.) should be 
    added to the <tt>llvm-test</tt> test suite, after approval from the
    Oversight Group. This test suite is for coverage not features or 
    regressions.</li>
  </ol>
</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_section"><a name="patches">Patch Policies</a></div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>This section contains policies that pertain to submitting patches 
  to LLVM and committing code to the repository</p>
</div>
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="p_form">Patch Form</a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>When submitting a patch, developers must follow these rules:</p>
  <ol>
    <li>Patches must be made against the CVS HEAD (main development trunk), 
    not a branch.</li>
    <li>Patches must be made with this cvs command:<pre>
    cvs diff -Ntdup -5</pre> or with the utility <tt>utils/mkpatch</tt>.</li>
    <li>Patches must not include differences in generated code such as the
    code generated by <tt>flex</tt>, <tt>bison</tt> or <tt>tblgen</tt>. The
    <tt>utils/mkpatch</tt> utility takes care of this for you.</li>
  </ol>
</div>
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="p_testing">Patch Testing</a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>Before a patch is submitted for review, it should be tested to ensure 
  that:</p>
  <ol>
    <li>The patch must compile against the CVS HEAD cleanly (zero warnings, zero
    errors).</li>
    <li>All the llvm/test (Deja Gnu) tests must pass.</li>
    <li>All the llvm-test tests must pass on at least one platform.</li>
  </ol>
</div>
<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="p_submission">Patch Submission</a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>When a patch is ready to be submitted, these policies apply:</p>
  <ol>
    <li>Patches should be submitted immediately after they are generated. Stale
    patches are unlikely to apply correctly and could be rejected simply due to
    age.</li>
    <li>Patches must be submitted by e-mail to the 
    <a href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvm-commits">
      llvm-commits</a> list.</li>
  </ol>
</div>

<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="p_after">After Submission</a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>After a patch has been submitted, these policies apply:</p>
  <ol>
    <li>The patch is subject to review by anyone on the llvm-commits email list.
    </li>
    <li>Any changes recommended by the reviewer must be made by the submitter
    of the patch and the patch re-submitted.</li>
    <li>If the submitter believes the review comment is in error, a response to
    the  <a href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvm-commits">
      llvm-commits</a> list should be made explaining why the recommendation 
    cannot be followed.</li>
  </ol>
</div>

<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="p_after">After Commit</a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>After a patch has been committed, these policies apply:</p>
  <ol>
    <li>The patch is subject to further review by anyone on the llvm-commits 
    email list.</li>
    <li>The patch submitter is responsible for all aspects of the patch per 
    the <a href="quality">quality policy</a> above.</li>
    <li>If the patch is discovered to not meet the 
    <a href="quality">quality standards</a> standards within a reasonable time 
    frame (24 hours), it may be subject to reversal.</li>
  </ol>
</div>

<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="c_access">Gaining Commit Access</a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>Commit access to the repository is granted according to this policy:</p>
  <ol>
    <li>Commit access is not granted to anyone unless they specifically ask for
    it.</li>
    <li>Requests for commit access must be sent to the LLVM Oversight Group at
    <a href="mailto:oversight@llvm.org">oversight@llvm.org</a>.</li>
    <li>Granting commit access is at the sole discretion of the LLVM Oversight
    Group.</li>
    <li>Submitting patches to LLVM via the patch policy above will greatly
    increase the chance that your request for commit access is granted.</li>
    <li>Getting to know the members of the LLVM community (email, IRC, in person
    contact, etc.) will also increase your chances.</li>
  </ol>
</div>

<!-- _______________________________________________________________________ -->
<div class="doc_subsection"> <a name="c_new">New Committers</a></div>
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>For those who have recently obtained commit access, the following policies
  apply:</p>
  <ol>
    <li>You are granted <i>commit-after-approval</i> to all parts of LLVM.
    To get approval, submit a patch to llvm-commits per the patch policies 
    above.  When approved you may commit it yourself.</li>
    <li>You are granted <i>commit-without-approavl</i> to those portions of LLVM
    that you own (contributed) or maintain (have been assigned responsibility 
    for), with the proviso that such commits must not break the build. This is
    a "trust but verify" policy and commits of this nature are reviewed after 
    they are committed.</li>
    <li>Commits that violate the <a href="quality">quality standards</a> may
    be reverted. This is necessary when the change blocks other developers from
    making progress. The developers is welcome to re-commit the change after 
    the problem has been fixed.</li>
    <li>Multiple violations of these policies or a single aggregious violation
    may cause commit access to be revoked, at the sole discretion of the
    LLVM Oversight Group.</li>
  </ol>
</div>

<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_section"><a name="notes">Policy Notes</a></div>
<!--=========================================================================-->
<div class="doc_text">
  <p>This section contains some notes on policy topics that need to be
  resolved and incorporated into the main body of the document above.</p>
  <ol>
    <li>When to open a new bug and when to re-use an existing one. For example
    PR1158. If the same assertion happens do you open a new bug or reopen
    1158?</li>
  </ol>
</div>

<!-- *********************************************************************** -->
<hr>
<address>
  <a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/check/referer"><img
  src="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/images/vcss" alt="Valid CSS!"></a>
  <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img
  src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-html401" alt="Valid HTML 4.01!" /></a>
  Written By: <a href="mailto:oversight@llvm.org">LLVM Oversight Group</a><br>
  <a href="http://llvm.org">The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure</a><br>
  Last modified: $Date$
</address>
</body>
</html>