\index{Notes!Bacula Developer}
\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{Bacula Developer Notes}
-This document is intended mostly for developers and describes the the general
+This document is intended mostly for developers and describes how you can
+contribute to the Bacula project and the the general
framework of making Bacula source changes.
\subsection{Contributions}
\index{Contributions}
\addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Contributions}
-Contributions from programmers are broken into two groups. The first are
-contributions that are aids and not essential to Bacula. In general, these
-will be scripts or will go into and examples or contributions directory.
-For these kinds of non-essential contributions there is no obligation to do
-a copyright assignment as described below. However, a copyright assignment
-would still be appreciated.
+Contributions to the Bacula project come in many forms: ideas,
+participation in helping people on the bacula-users email list,
+packaging Bacula binaries for the community, helping improve
+the documentation, and submitting code.
+
+Contributions in the form of submissions for inclusion in the project are
+broken into two groups. The first are contributions that are aids and not
+essential to Bacula. In general, these will be scripts or will go into and
+examples or contributions directory. For these kinds of non-essential
+contributions there is no obligation to do a copyright assignment as
+described below. However, a copyright assignment would still be
+appreciated.
The second class of contributions are those which will be integrated with
-Bacula and become an essential part. Within this class of contributions, there
-are two hurdles to surmount. One is getting your patch accepted, and two is
-dealing with copyright issues. The following text describes some of the
-requirements for such code.
+Bacula and become an essential part (code, scripts, documentation, ...)
+Within this class of contributions, there are two hurdles to surmount. One
+is getting your patch accepted, and two is dealing with copyright issues.
+The following text describes some of the requirements for such code.
\subsection{Patches}
\index{Patches}
Subject to the copyright assignment described below, your patches should be
sent in {\bf diff -u} format relative to the current contents of the Source
-Forge SVN, which is the easiest to understand and integrate.
-Please be sure to use the Bacula indenting standard (see below).
+Forge SVN. The diff -u format is the easiest for us to understand and integrate.
+Please be sure to use the Bacula indenting standard (see below) for source code.
If you have checked out the source with SVN, you can get a diff using:
\begin{verbatim}
If you plan on doing significant development work over a period of time,
after having your first patch reviewed and approved, you will be eligible
-for having developer SVN access so that you can commit your changes
+for having developer SVN write access so that you can commit your changes
directly to the SVN repository. To do so, you will need a userid on Source
Forge.
Walker. After November 2004, the code was copyrighted by Kern
Sibbald, then on the 15th of November 2006, the copyright was
transferred to the Free Software Foundation Europe e.V.
+In signing the FLA and transferring the copyright, you retain the
+right to use the code you have submitted as you want.
Your name should be clearly indicated as the author of the code, and you
-must be extremely careful not to violate any copyrights or use other
+must be extremely careful not to violate any copyrights or patents or use other
people's code without acknowledging it. The purpose of this requirement is
to avoid future copyright, patent, or intellectual property problems.
-Please read the LICENSE agreement in the main source code
+Please read the LICENSE agreement in the main Bacula source code
directory. When you sign the Fiduciary License Agreement (FLA)
and send it in, you are argeeing to the terms of that LICENSE
file.
-To understand the possible source of future problems, please
-examine the difficulties Mozilla is (was?) having finding
+If you don't understand what we mean by future problems, please
+examine the difficulties Mozilla was having finding
previous contributors at \elink{
http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/missing.html}
{http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/missing.html}. The other important issue is to
-avoid copyright, patent, or intellectual property violations as are currently
-(May 2003) being claimed by SCO against IBM.
+avoid copyright, patent, or intellectual property violations as was
+(May 2003) claimed by SCO against IBM.
Although the copyright will be held by the Free Software
Foundation Europe e.V., each developer is expected to indicate
was sufficient if the developer is independent, or an employee of a
not-for-profit organization or a university. However, in an effort to
ensure that the Bacula code is really clean, beginning in August 2006, all
-previous and future developers with SVN access will be asked to submit a
+previous and future developers with SVN write access will be asked to submit a
copyright assignment (or Fiduciary License Agreement -- FLA),
which means you agree to the LICENSE in the main source
directory. It also means that you receive back the right to use
the code that you have submitted.
Any developer who wants to contribute and is employed by a company should
-either list the employer as the owner of the code, or get
-explicit permission from him to sign the copyright assignment.
-This is because in many
-countries, all work that an employee does whether on company time or in the
-employee's free time is considered to be Intellectual Property of the
-company. Obtaining official approval or an FLA from the company will avoid
-misunderstandings between the employee, the company, and the Bacula
+either list the employer as the owner of the code, or get explicit
+permission from him to sign the copyright assignment. This is because in
+many countries, all work that an employee does whether on company time or
+in the employee's free time is considered to be Intellectual Property of
+the company. Obtaining official approval or an FLA from the company will
+avoid misunderstandings between the employee, the company, and the Bacula
project. A good number of companies have already followed this procedure.
The Fiduciary License Agreement is posted on the Bacula web site at:
Please note that the above address is different from the officially
registered office mentioned in the document. When you send in such a
-complete document, please notify me: kern at sibbald dot com.
+complete document, please notify me: kern at sibbald dot com, and
+please add your email address to the FLA so that I can contact you
+to confirm reception of the signed FLA.
\section{The Development Cycle}
\addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Development Cycle}
As I noted in the 1.38 ReleaseNotes, version 1.38 was different from prior
-versions because it had a lot more contributions. I expect that this trend
-will continue. As a consequence, I am going to modify how I normally do
-development, and instead of making a list of all the features that I will
-implement in the next version, I will personally sign up for one (maybe
-two) projects at a time, and when they are complete, I will release a new
+versions because it had a lot more contributions. We expect that this trend
+will continue. As a consequence, we have modified how we do
+development, and instead of making a list of all the features that we will
+implement in the next version, each developer will sign up for one (maybe
+two) projects at a time, and when they are complete, we will release a new
version.
-The difference is that I will have more time to review the new code that is
+The difference is that we will have more time to review the new code that is
being contributed, and will be able to devote more time to a smaller number
-of projects (1.38 had too many new features for me to handle correctly).
+of projects (1.38 had too many new features for us to handle correctly).
-I expect that future release schedules will be much the same, and the
+Future release schedules will be much the same, and the
number of new features will also be much the same providing that the
contributions continue to come -- and they show no signs of let up :-)
\index{Feature Requests}
{\bf Feature Requests:} \\
-In addition, I would like to "formalize" the feature requests a bit.
+In addition, we would like to "formalize" the feature requests a bit.
Instead of me maintaining an informal list of everything I run into
-(kernstodo), I would like to maintain a "formal" list of projects. This
+(kernstodo), we would like to maintain a "formal" list of projects. This
means that all new feature requests, including those recently discussed on
the email lists, must be formally submitted and approved.
1. non-mandatory, but highly recommended is to discuss proposed new features
on the mailing list.\\
2. Formal submission of an Feature Request in a special format.
-I'll give an example of this below, but you can also find it on the web
+We'll give an example of this below, but you can also find it on the web
site under "Support -\gt{} Feature Requests". Since it takes a bit of time to
properly fill out a Feature Request form, you probably should check on the email list
first.
Once the Feature Request is received by the keeper of the projects list, it
-will be sent to me, and I will either accept it, send it back
-asking for clarification, send it to the email list asking for opinions, or
-reject it.
+will be sent to the Bacula project manager (Kern), and he will either
+accept it, send it back asking for clarification, send it to the email list
+asking for opinions, or reject it.
If it is accepted, it will go in the "projects" file (a simple ASCII file)
maintained in the main Bacula source directory.
1. feedback from users. If it is negative, the Feature Request will probably not be
accepted. \\
2. the difficulty of the project. A project that is so
-difficult that I cannot imagine finding someone to implement probably won't
-be accepted. \\
+difficult that we cannot imagine finding someone to implement probably won't
+be accepted. Obviously if you know how to implement it, don't hesitate
+to put it in your Feature Request \\
3. whether or not the Feature Request fits within the
current stategy of Bacula (for example an Feature Request that requests changing the
-tape to tar format would not be accepted, ...)
+tape to tar format probably would not be accepted, ...).
{\bf How Feature Requests are prioritized:}\\
Once an Feature Request is accepted, it needs to be implemented. If you
discuss and send in your Feature Requests for the next release. Please
verify that the Feature Request is not in the current list (attached to this email).
-Once users have had several weeks to submit Feature Requests, the keeper of the
-projects list will
-organize them, and request users to vote on them. This will allow fixing
-prioritizing the Feature Requests. Having a priority is one thing, but
-getting it implement is another thing -- we are hoping that the Bacula
-community will take more responsibility for assuring the implementation of
-accepted Feature Requests.
+Once users have had several weeks to submit Feature Requests, the keeper of
+the projects list will organize them, and request users to vote on them.
+This will allow fixing prioritizing the Feature Requests. Having a
+priority is one thing, but getting it implement is another thing -- we are
+hoping that the Bacula community will take more responsibility for assuring
+the implementation of accepted Feature Requests.
Feature Request format:
\begin{verbatim}
\item There are growing numbers of contributions (very good).
-\item Some contributions come in the form of relatively small patches,
+\item Some contributions come in the form of relatively small patches,
which Kern reviews, integrates, documents, tests, and maintains.
\item All Bacula developers take full
- responsibility for writing the code, posting as patches so that I can
+ responsibility for writing the code, posting as patches so that we can
review it as time permits, integrating it at an appropriate time,
- responding to my requests for tweaking it (name changes, ...),
+ responding to our requests for tweaking it (name changes, ...),
document it in the code, document it in the manual (even though
their mother tongue is not English), test it, develop and commit
regression scripts, and answer in a timely fashion all bug reports --
This is a sustainable way of going forward with Bacula, and the
direction that the project will be taking more and more. For
example, in the past, we have had some very dedicated programmers
- who did major projects. However, these
+ who did major projects. However, some of these
programmers due to outside obligations (job responsibilities change of
job, school duties, ...) could not continue to maintain the code. In
- those cases, the code suffers from lack of maintenance, sometimes I
+ those cases, the code suffers from lack of maintenance, sometimes we
patch it, sometimes not. In the end, the code gets dropped from the
project (there are two such contributions that are heading in that
direction). When ever possible, we would like to avoid this, and
understand it. Look at the current code, and you will see that I document more
than most, but am definitely not a fanatic.
-I prefer simple linear code where possible. Gotos are strongly discouraged
+We prefer simple linear code where possible. Gotos are strongly discouraged
except for handling an error to either bail out or to retry some code, and
such use of gotos can vastly simplify the program.
\index{Indenting Standards}
\addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Indenting Standards}
-I cannot stand code indented 8 columns at a time. This makes the code
-unreadable. Even 4 at a time uses a lot of space, so I have adopted indenting
+We find it very hard to read code indented 8 columns at a time.
+Even 4 at a time uses a lot of space, so we have adopted indenting
3 spaces at every level. Note, indention is the visual appearance of the
source on the page, while tabbing is replacing a series of up to 8 spaces from
a tab character.
\end{verbatim}
\normalsize
-Just follow the convention in the code. Originally I indented case clauses
-under a switch(), but now I prefer non-indented cases.
+Just follow the convention in the code. For example we I prefer non-indented cases.
\footnotesize
\begin{verbatim}
\end{verbatim}
\normalsize
+Note: {\bf \%lld} is now permitted in Bacula code -- we have our
+own printf routines which handle it correctly. The edit\_uint64() subroutine
+can still be used if you wish, but over time, most of that old style will
+be removed.
+
The edit buffer {\bf ed1} must be at least 27 bytes long to avoid overflow.
See src/lib/edit.c for more details. If you look at the code, don't start
screaming that I use {\bf lld}. I actually use subtle trick taught to me by
Getting Support page of www.bacula.org.
-
-
projects / bacula / docs / commitdiff