668725ce6b
We don't currently have a clear place in the documentation to describe the roles and responsibilities of a maintainer. Lets create one so we can. I've moved a few small bits out of other files to try and keep everything in one place. Signed-off-by: Alex Bennée <alex.bennee@linaro.org> Reviewed-by: Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Philippe Mathieu-Daudé <philmd@linaro.org> Message-Id: <20221117172532.538149-5-alex.bennee@linaro.org>
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108 lines
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.. _maintainers:
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The Role of Maintainers
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=======================
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Maintainers are a critical part of the project's contributor ecosystem.
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They come from a wide range of backgrounds from unpaid hobbyists
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working in their spare time to employees who work on the project as
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part of their job. Maintainer activities include:
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- reviewing patches and suggesting changes
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- collecting patches and preparing pull requests
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- tending to the long term health of their area
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- participating in other project activities
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They are also human and subject to the same pressures as everyone else
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including overload and burnout. Like everyone else they are subject
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to project's :ref:`code_of_conduct` and should also be exemplars of
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excellent community collaborators.
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The MAINTAINERS file
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--------------------
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The `MAINTAINERS
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<https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/blob/master/MAINTAINERS>`__
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file contains the canonical list of who is a maintainer. The file
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is machine readable so an appropriately configured git (see
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:ref:`cc_the_relevant_maintainer`) can automatically Cc them on
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patches that touch their area of code.
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The file also describes the status of the area of code to give an idea
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of how actively that section is maintained.
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.. list-table:: Meaning of support status in MAINTAINERS
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:widths: 25 75
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:header-rows: 1
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* - Status
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- Meaning
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* - Supported
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- Someone is actually paid to look after this.
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* - Maintained
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- Someone actually looks after it.
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* - Odd Fixes
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- It has a maintainer but they don't have time to do
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much other than throw the odd patch in.
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* - Orphan
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- No current maintainer.
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* - Obsolete
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- Old obsolete code, should use something else.
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Please bear in mind that even if someone is paid to support something
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it does not mean they are paid to support you. This is open source and
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the code comes with no warranty and the project makes no guarantees
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about dealing with bugs or features requests.
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Becoming a reviewer
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-------------------
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Most maintainers start by becoming subsystem reviewers. While anyone
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is welcome to review code on the mailing list getting added to the
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MAINTAINERS file with a line like::
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R: Random Hacker <rhacker@example.com>
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marks you as a 'designated reviewer' - expected to provide regular
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spontaneous feedback. This will ensure that patches touching a given
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subsystem will automatically be CC'd to you.
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Becoming a maintainer
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---------------------
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Maintainers are volunteers who put themselves forward or have been
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asked by others to keep an eye on an area of code. They have generally
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demonstrated to the community, usually via contributions and code
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reviews, that they have a good understanding of the subsystem. They
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are also trusted to make a positive contribution to the project and
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work well with the other contributors.
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The process is simple - simply send a patch to the list that updates
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the ``MAINTAINERS`` file. Sometimes this is done as part of a larger
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series when a new sub-system is being added to the code base. This can
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also be done by a retiring maintainer who nominates their replacement
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after discussion with other contributors.
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Once the patch is reviewed and merged the only other step is to make
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sure your GPG key is signed.
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.. _maintainer_keys:
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Maintainer GPG Keys
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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GPG is used to sign pull requests so they can be identified as really
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coming from the maintainer. If your key is not already signed by
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members of the QEMU community, you should make arrangements to attend
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a `KeySigningParty <https://wiki.qemu.org/KeySigningParty>`__ (for
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example at KVM Forum) or make alternative arrangements to have your
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key signed by an attendee. Key signing requires meeting another
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community member **in person** [#]_ so please make appropriate
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arrangements.
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.. [#] In recent pandemic times we have had to exercise some
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flexibility here. Maintainers still need to sign their pull
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requests though.
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