1.. _maintainers: 2 3The Role of Maintainers 4======================= 5 6Maintainers are a critical part of the project's contributor ecosystem. 7They come from a wide range of backgrounds from unpaid hobbyists 8working in their spare time to employees who work on the project as 9part of their job. Maintainer activities include: 10 11 - reviewing patches and suggesting changes 12 - collecting patches and preparing pull requests 13 - tending to the long term health of their area 14 - participating in other project activities 15 16They are also human and subject to the same pressures as everyone else 17including overload and burnout. Like everyone else they are subject 18to project's :ref:`code_of_conduct` and should also be exemplars of 19excellent community collaborators. 20 21The MAINTAINERS file 22-------------------- 23 24The `MAINTAINERS 25<https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/blob/master/MAINTAINERS>`__ 26file contains the canonical list of who is a maintainer. The file 27is machine readable so an appropriately configured git (see 28:ref:`cc_the_relevant_maintainer`) can automatically Cc them on 29patches that touch their area of code. 30 31The file also describes the status of the area of code to give an idea 32of how actively that section is maintained. 33 34.. list-table:: Meaning of support status in MAINTAINERS 35 :widths: 25 75 36 :header-rows: 1 37 38 * - Status 39 - Meaning 40 * - Supported 41 - Someone is actually paid to look after this. 42 * - Maintained 43 - Someone actually looks after it. 44 * - Odd Fixes 45 - It has a maintainer but they don't have time to do 46 much other than throw the odd patch in. 47 * - Orphan 48 - No current maintainer. 49 * - Obsolete 50 - Old obsolete code, should use something else. 51 52Please bear in mind that even if someone is paid to support something 53it does not mean they are paid to support you. This is open source and 54the code comes with no warranty and the project makes no guarantees 55about dealing with bugs or features requests. 56 57 58 59Becoming a reviewer 60------------------- 61 62Most maintainers start by becoming subsystem reviewers. While anyone 63is welcome to review code on the mailing list getting added to the 64MAINTAINERS file with a line like:: 65 66 R: Random Hacker <rhacker@example.com> 67 68marks you as a 'designated reviewer' - expected to provide regular 69spontaneous feedback. This will ensure that patches touching a given 70subsystem will automatically be CC'd to you. 71 72Becoming a maintainer 73--------------------- 74 75Maintainers are volunteers who put themselves forward or have been 76asked by others to keep an eye on an area of code. They have generally 77demonstrated to the community, usually via contributions and code 78reviews, that they have a good understanding of the subsystem. They 79are also trusted to make a positive contribution to the project and 80work well with the other contributors. 81 82The process is simple - simply send a patch to the list that updates 83the ``MAINTAINERS`` file. Sometimes this is done as part of a larger 84series when a new sub-system is being added to the code base. This can 85also be done by a retiring maintainer who nominates their replacement 86after discussion with other contributors. 87 88Once the patch is reviewed and merged the only other step is to make 89sure your GPG key is signed. 90 91.. _maintainer_keys: 92 93Maintainer GPG Keys 94~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 95 96GPG is used to sign pull requests so they can be identified as really 97coming from the maintainer. If your key is not already signed by 98members of the QEMU community, you should make arrangements to attend 99a `KeySigningParty <https://wiki.qemu.org/KeySigningParty>`__ (for 100example at KVM Forum) or make alternative arrangements to have your 101key signed by an attendee. Key signing requires meeting another 102community member **in person** [#]_ so please make appropriate 103arrangements. 104 105.. [#] In recent pandemic times we have had to exercise some 106 flexibility here. Maintainers still need to sign their pull 107 requests though. 108