1 Submitting Drivers For The Linux Kernel
2 ---------------------------------------
4 This document is intended to explain how to submit device drivers to the
5 various kernel trees. Note that if you are interested in video card drivers
6 you should probably talk to XFree86 (http://www.xfree86.org) instead.
8 Also read the Documentation/SubmittingPatches document.
11 Allocating Device Numbers
12 -------------------------
14 Major and minor numbers for block and character devices are allocated
15 by the Linux assigned name and number authority (currently better
16 known as H Peter Anvin). The site is http://www.lanana.org/. This
17 also deals with allocating numbers for devices that are not going to
18 be submitted to the mainstream kernel.
20 If you don't use assigned numbers then when you device is submitted it will
21 get given an assigned number even if that is different from values you may
22 have shipped to customers before.
24 Who To Submit Drivers To
25 ------------------------
28 No new drivers are accepted for this kernel tree
31 If the code area has a general maintainer then please submit it to
32 the maintainer listed in MAINTAINERS in the kernel file. If the
33 maintainer does not respond or you cannot find the appropriate
34 maintainer then please contact Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
37 The same rules apply as 2.2 but this kernel tree is under active
38 development. The final contact point for Linux 2.4 submissions is
39 Marcelo Tosatti <marcelo@conectiva.com.br>.
42 The same rules apply as 2.4 except that you should follow linux-kernel
43 to track changes in API's. The final contact point for Linux 2.5
44 submissions is Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>.
46 What Criteria Determine Acceptance
47 ----------------------------------
49 Licensing: The code must be released to us under the
50 GNU General Public License. We don't insist on any kind
51 of exclusively GPL licensing, and if you wish the driver
52 to be useful to other communities such as BSD you may well
53 wish to release under multiple licenses.
55 Interfaces: If your driver uses existing interfaces and behaves like
56 other drivers in the same class it will be much more likely
57 to be accepted than if it invents gratuitous new ones.
58 If you need to implement a common API over Linux and NT
59 drivers do it in userspace.
61 Code: Please use the Linux style of code formatting as documented
62 in Documentation/CodingStyle. If you have sections of code
63 that need to be in other formats, for example because they
64 are shared with a windows driver kit and you want to
65 maintain them just once separate them out nicely and note
68 Portability: Pointers are not always 32bits, not all computers are little
69 endian, people do not all have floating point and you
70 shouldn't use inline x86 assembler in your driver without
71 careful thought. Pure x86 drivers generally are not popular.
72 If you only have x86 hardware it is hard to test portability
73 but it is easy to make sure the code can easily be made
76 Clarity: It helps if anyone can see how to fix the driver. It helps
77 you because you get patches not bug reports. If you submit a
78 driver that intentionally obfuscates how the hardware works
79 it will go in the bitbucket.
81 Control: In general if there is active maintainance of a driver by
82 the author then patches will be redirected to them unless
83 they are totally obvious and without need of checking.
84 If you want to be the contact and update point for the
85 driver it is a good idea to state this in the comments,
86 and include an entry in MAINTAINERS for your driver.
88 What Criteria Do Not Determine Acceptance
89 -----------------------------------------
91 Vendor: Being the hardware vendor and maintaining the driver is
92 often a good thing. If there is a stable working driver from
93 other people already in the tree don't expect 'we are the
94 vendor' to get your driver chosen. Ideally work with the
95 existing driver author to build a single perfect driver.
97 Author: It doesn't matter if a large Linux company wrote the driver,
98 or you did. Nobody has any special access to the kernel
99 tree. Anyone who tells you otherwise isn't telling the
106 Linux kernel master tree:
107 ftp.??.kernel.org:/pub/linux/kernel/...
108 ?? == your country code, such as "us", "uk", "fr", etc.
110 Linux kernel mailing list:
111 linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
112 [mail majordomo@vger.kernel.org to subscribe]
115 Weekly summary of kernel list activity (much easier to read)
116 [http://kt.zork.net/kernel-traffic]
119 http://sourceforge.net/projects/linux-usb/