CONTRIBUTING


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How to Contribute to libsamsung-ipc
===================================

The upstream source code for libsamsung-ipc is available here:
https://git.replicant.us/replicant/hardware_replicant_libsamsung-ipc

Policies
--------
While at the time of writing, Replicant is the main user of libsamsung-ipc, and
maintains it, libsamsung-ipc usage is not limited to Replicant nor Android.

In the past, libsamsung-ipc was used in the SHR GNU/Linux distribution
as well, with the freesmartphone.org middleware.

This has some consequences:
- When doing changes to the build system, we need to make sure that both the
  Android.mk and the Autotools related files are updated.
- The decisions to not to support certain smartphones and tablets in Replicant
  don't apply to libsamsung-ipc as libsamsung-ipc can also be used by other
  distributions that might want to support such devices.
- While it's not possible to version libraries in Android yet, we still need to
  think about updating the soname in the Autotools build system when breaking
  the API or ABI.

In order to enable people to use libsamsung-ipc from git without silent
breakages, we decided to update the soname at each incompatible changes.

Code style and commits:
-----------------------
Libsamsung-ipc follows the Linux code style as other projects like oFono also
use a similar code style, and that several people working on libsamsung-ipc
are used to it as they contributed to the Linux kernel too.

It also enables to reuse the tools used by Linux to check the code style, which
fit well into the workflow that is already in use for sending patches.

Sending patches:
----------------
Patches for libsamsung-ipc are reviewed on the Replicant mailing list[1]. That
mailing list is also used for many other Replicant topics, but at the time of
writing it's not a very high traffic mailing list.

As libsamsung-ipc is heavily used by Replicant, it also increase the number
of people interested in reviewing patches.

[1]https://lists.osuosl.org/mailman/listinfo/replicant