CONTRIBUTING

HOW TO CONTRIBUTE TO PATCHES OpenSSL
------------------------------------

(Please visit https://www.openssl.org/community/getting-started.html for
other ideas about how to contribute.)

Development is coordinated on the openssl-dev mailing list (see the
above link or https://mta.openssl.org for information on subscribing).
If you are unsure as to whether a feature will be useful for the general
OpenSSL community you might want to discuss it on the openssl-dev mailing
list first.  Someone may be already working on the same thing or there
may be a good reason as to why that feature isn't implemented.

The best way to submit a patch is to make a pull request on GitHub.
(It is not necessary to send mail to rt@openssl.org to open a ticket!)
If you think the patch could use feedback from the community, please
start a thread on openssl-dev.

You can also submit patches by sending it as mail to rt@openssl.org.
Please include the word "PATCH" and an explanation of what the patch
does in the subject line.  If you do this, our preferred format is "git
format-patch" output. For example to provide a patch file containing the
last commit in your local git repository use the following command:

    % git format-patch --stdout HEAD^ >mydiffs.patch

Another method of creating an acceptable patch file without using git is as
follows:

    % cd openssl-work
    ...make your changes...
    % ./Configure dist; make clean
    % cd ..
    % diff -ur openssl-orig openssl-work >mydiffs.patch

Note that pull requests are generally easier for the team, and community, to
work with.  Pull requests benefit from all of the standard GitHub features,
including code review tools, simpler integration, and CI build support.

No matter how a patch is submitted, the following items will help make
the acceptance and review process faster:

    1. Anything other than trivial contributions will require a contributor
    licensing agreement, giving us permission to use your code. See
    https://www.openssl.org/policies/cla.html for details.

    2.  All source files should start with the following text (with
    appropriate comment characters at the start of each line and the
    year(s) updated):

        Copyright 20xx-20yy The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.

        Licensed under the OpenSSL license (the "License").  You may not use
        this file except in compliance with the License.  You can obtain a copy
        in the file LICENSE in the source distribution or at
        https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html

    3.  Patches should be as current as possible.  When using GitHub, please
    expect to have to rebase and update often. Note that we do not accept merge
    commits, so please avoid these in any pull request. You will be asked to
    remove them before a patch is considered acceptable.

    4.  Patches should follow our coding style (see
    https://www.openssl.org/policies/codingstyle.html) and compile without
    warnings. Where gcc or clang is availble you should use the
    --strict-warnings Configure option.  OpenSSL compiles on many varied
    platforms: try to ensure you only use portable features.

    5.  When at all possible, patches should include tests. These can either be
    added to an existing test, or completely new.  Please see test/README
    for information on the test framework.