Mailing Lists

Thank you for your interest in contributing to QMTest. We recognize that it takes substantial effort to produce changes and appreciate your willingness to share your work!

In order to incorporate your changes into our source tree, certain criteria must be met. These criteria fall into two categories: technical requirements and legal requirements. The technical requirements protect the quality of the source code; the legal requirements help to protect you, CodeSourcery, and our users from legal action.

Technical Requirements

Here are the technical requirements that must be met in order for a change to be incorporated:

1. An explanation of the change must be submitted with the change. The explanation should indicate what defect is being corrected, or what feature is being added.
2. A ChangeLog entry must be submitted with the change.
3. Changes must be formatted in a style consistent with that used in the existing code. Appropriate comments must be present.
4. If the change is directly visible to the user (e.g., if a new command line option is added), appropriate modifications to the users' manual must be submitted with the change.

Legal Requirements

Even though is open source software, certain legal requirements must be met before your changes are incorporated. In particular, we must have a reasonable assurance that we can continue to distribute and that users will be able to continue using after your change is incorporated.

We have provided two alternative methods of meeting the legal requirements. You can choose which method you want to use. The methods are described below. Once you choose a method, you must fill out a form and mail or fax the form to us. Our address and fax number are available on our contact page.

Both forms require you to promise that you are the sole owner of the changes. If you work for a company, or are a student at a university, you should check with your organization first to make sure that you, and not your employer, are the owner of your changes.

The first form you can use is the copyright assignment form. This form assigns your interest in the changes to us, but allows you to continue using the changes however you like. For example, you could still license your changes to other parties under different terms.

The second form you can use is the disclaimer form. This form disclaims your interest in the changes altogether, placing them in the public domain. That means that anyone can use the changes for any purpose.

From CodeSourcery's perspective, it does not make any difference which method you choose. We will incorporate technically sound changes using either method. Please read both forms carefully and pick the one that you think will serve your needs best.