4 This file lists the maintainers for subsystems in Samba. Please see
5 the end of the file for information on how the maintainers system
6 works. If you can't work out who the maintainer is for some code,
7 please ask on the samba-technical list or on the samba-technical IRC
11 =======================================================================
13 directory: lib/tevent/
15 Stefan Metzmacher <metze@samba.org>
17 All commits require review by the maintainer.
19 If no maintainer is available for longer than a week
20 discussion on the samba-technical list and review by 2
21 Samba-Team members is needed (e.g. Andrew Tridgell <tridge@samba.org>
22 and Volker Lendecke <vl@samba.org>).
24 Larger changes need also discussion on the samba-technical list
25 and review by all maintainers.
27 directory: lib/tsocket/
29 Stefan Metzmacher <metze@samba.org>
31 All commits require review by the maintainer.
33 If no maintainer is available for longer than a week
34 discussion on the samba-technical list and review by 2
35 Samba-Team members is needed.
37 Larger changes need also discussion on the samba-technical list
38 and review by all maintainers.
40 files: buildtools/**, source4/**/wscript
42 Andrew Tridgell <tridge@samba.org>
43 Jelmer Vernooij <jelmer@samba.org>
45 small commits to master allowed if all existing tests
46 pass. Larger commits require discussion on the samba-technical
47 list and review by the maintainer
49 files: lib/tevent/py*, lib/talloc/py*, source4/lib/ldb/py*, lib/tdb/py*
51 Jelmer Vernooij <jelmer@samba.org>
53 Larger commits require pre-push review by the maintainer or
54 one of the maintainers of the containing subsystem.
56 Other non-trivial (typo, etc) commits require pre- or post-push review by the
57 maintainer or one of the maintainers of the containing subsystem.
60 =======================================================================
62 Samba Maintainers System
63 ------------------------
65 The Samba project has adopted a maintainers system, with the following
68 - we have created a new 'MAINTAINERS.txt' file in the root of the git
71 - that file will contain a list of subsystems, and along with each
72 subsystem a list of maintainers
74 - subsystems may be subdirectories, or logical groups of files (for
75 example "build system" or "selftest" could be subsystems that span
78 - if a subsystem is not listed in the MAINTAINERS.txt file, then this
79 maintainers proposal does not apply to that subsystem. The previous
80 Samba development methods apply to unlisted subsystems.
82 - when we first create the MAINTAINERS.txt it will be empty, thus on
83 the first day of adoption there is no actual change to our
86 - we will add subsystems to the MAINTAINERS.txt file via consensus
87 within the Samba Team. This means that someone would propose
88 themselves, or another team member, as a subsystem maintainer, and
89 if there are no objections then they can push a change to the
90 maintainers file after a couple of days waiting for replies. If
91 there is an existing maintainer for that subsystem then at minimum
92 the person proposing should wait for a positive ack from the
95 - a typical subsystem declaration would be:
99 Andrew Bartlett <abartlet@samba.org>
100 Andrew Tridgell <tridge@samba.org>
102 small commits to master allowed if all existing tests
103 pass. Larger commits require discussion on samba-technical
104 list and review by the maintainer
106 - the maintainers for a subsystem may update the policy for that
107 subsystem at any time by pushing a commit to the MAINTAINERS.txt
108 file. Significant changes should also be sent to the
109 samba-technical list to ensure that all developers are aware of the
112 - a subsystem may have multiple maintainers, and it is expected that
113 this will be the case for many of our subsystems.
115 - a maintainer may delegate responsibility to someone else for a
116 period of time (such as during rapid development or when the
117 maintainer is away). A maintainer may also appoint a backup
118 maintainer. These changes should be noted in the maintainers file,
119 and removed when no longer relevent.
121 - maintainer handover would happen by agreement between the old and
122 new maintainer, and is signified by a commit to the MAINTAINERS.txt
123 file. If agreement cannot be reached then we can resolve the
124 disagreement using discussions on the team list. If agreement still
125 can't be reached then the maintainer won't change.
127 What does it mean to be a maintainer?
128 -------------------------------------
130 If you are a maintainer for a subsystem then you have some additional
131 rights and responsibilies for that code. Specifically:
133 - you should make time to review any proposed changes to any
134 subsystems that you maintain. You should then provide feedback on
135 proposed changes or sign off on the changes once you are happy with
138 - you may choose the policy for the subsystems you maintain. That
139 policy could be a permissive one, where you allow for small changes
140 without review, or it could be a strict one, where you only allow
141 reviewed changes to be pushed.
143 - being a maintainer for a subsystem does not override the "right of
144 veto" of other team members for technical objections. See the
145 "right of veto" section below for more information.
147 - the maintainers can set the developmental direction of the
148 subsystem, but should strive to achieve concensus where possible
149 with other team members for the benefit of the whole
152 Note that if you set a permissive policy on your subsystem, so that
153 small changes may be pushed without review, you are still responsible
154 for reviewing changes if someone specifically asks you to review a
157 Try to reuse policy wording
158 ---------------------------
160 It would be good if we end up with only a few sets of policy wording,
161 rather than a completely different policy for each subsystem. To try
162 to achieve that, maintainers should try to re-use an existing policy
169 Over the last few years the Samba Team has started to use a +1/-1
170 voting system, which was inspired by the Apache voting system for
171 technical issues (see http://www.apache.org/foundation/voting.html).
173 For the maintainers proposal to work, I think we need to ensure that
174 everyone understands what a -1 "veto" vote means on a technical issue.
176 For purely technical issues, the +1/-1 voting system should not be a
177 "most votes wins" system. Instead a single -1 vote is supposed to
178 override any number of +1 votes, so a -1 vote is a "veto", and all
179 team members have the right to give a -1 veto vote on any purely
182 Along with the right to give a -1 veto vote comes the responsibility
183 to backup that veto with a technical argument, and the willingness to
184 then defend your argument in any subsequent discussions and to work
185 with the patch proposer to find a solution. If you do not backup your
186 -1 veto vote, or you are unwilling on unable to participate in any
187 discussions that arise from that veto, then the veto vote may be
190 Note that a veto is supposed to be used only for purely technical
191 reasons, so for example pointing out a security concern with a change,
192 or pointing out that the code may segfault or cause a regression of