+++ /dev/null
-.. _submittingdrivers:
-
-Submitting Drivers For The Linux Kernel
-=======================================
-
-This document is intended to explain how to submit device drivers to the
-various kernel trees. Note that if you are interested in video card drivers
-you should probably talk to XFree86 (https://www.xfree86.org/) and/or X.Org
-(https://x.org/) instead.
-
-.. note::
-
- This document is old and has seen little maintenance in recent years; it
- should probably be updated or, perhaps better, just deleted. Most of
- what is here can be found in the other development documents anyway.
-
- Oh, and we don't really recommend submitting changes to XFree86 :)
-
-Also read the :ref:`Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst <submittingpatches>`
-document.
-
-
-Allocating Device Numbers
--------------------------
-
-Major and minor numbers for block and character devices are allocated
-by the Linux assigned name and number authority (currently this is
-Torben Mathiasen). The site is https://www.lanana.org/. This
-also deals with allocating numbers for devices that are not going to
-be submitted to the mainstream kernel.
-See :ref:`Documentation/admin-guide/devices.rst <admin_devices>`
-for more information on this.
-
-If you don't use assigned numbers then when your device is submitted it will
-be given an assigned number even if that is different from values you may
-have shipped to customers before.
-
-Who To Submit Drivers To
-------------------------
-
-Linux 2.0:
- No new drivers are accepted for this kernel tree.
-
-Linux 2.2:
- No new drivers are accepted for this kernel tree.
-
-Linux 2.4:
- If the code area has a general maintainer then please submit it to
- the maintainer listed in MAINTAINERS in the kernel file. If the
- maintainer does not respond or you cannot find the appropriate
- maintainer then please contact Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu>.
-
-Linux 2.6 and upper:
- The same rules apply as 2.4 except that you should follow linux-kernel
- to track changes in API's. The final contact point for Linux 2.6+
- submissions is Andrew Morton.
-
-What Criteria Determine Acceptance
-----------------------------------
-
-Licensing:
- The code must be released to us under the
- GNU General Public License. If you wish the driver to be
- useful to other communities such as BSD you may release
- under multiple licenses. If you choose to release under
- licenses other than the GPL, you should include your
- rationale for your license choices in your cover letter.
- See accepted licenses at include/linux/module.h
-
-Copyright:
- The copyright owner must agree to use of GPL.
- It's best if the submitter and copyright owner
- are the same person/entity. If not, the name of
- the person/entity authorizing use of GPL should be
- listed in case it's necessary to verify the will of
- the copyright owner.
-
-Interfaces:
- If your driver uses existing interfaces and behaves like
- other drivers in the same class it will be much more likely
- to be accepted than if it invents gratuitous new ones.
- If you need to implement a common API over Linux and NT
- drivers do it in userspace.
-
-Code:
- Please use the Linux style of code formatting as documented
- in :ref:`Documentation/process/coding-style.rst <codingStyle>`.
- If you have sections of code
- that need to be in other formats, for example because they
- are shared with a windows driver kit and you want to
- maintain them just once separate them out nicely and note
- this fact.
-
-Portability:
- Pointers are not always 32bits, not all computers are little
- endian, people do not all have floating point and you
- shouldn't use inline x86 assembler in your driver without
- careful thought. Pure x86 drivers generally are not popular.
- If you only have x86 hardware it is hard to test portability
- but it is easy to make sure the code can easily be made
- portable.
-
-Clarity:
- It helps if anyone can see how to fix the driver. It helps
- you because you get patches not bug reports. If you submit a
- driver that intentionally obfuscates how the hardware works
- it will go in the bitbucket.
-
-PM support:
- Since Linux is used on many portable and desktop systems, your
- driver is likely to be used on such a system and therefore it
- should support basic power management by implementing, if
- necessary, the .suspend and .resume methods used during the
- system-wide suspend and resume transitions. You should verify
- that your driver correctly handles the suspend and resume, but
- if you are unable to ensure that, please at least define the
- .suspend method returning the -ENOSYS ("Function not
- implemented") error. You should also try to make sure that your
- driver uses as little power as possible when it's not doing
- anything. For the driver testing instructions see
- Documentation/power/drivers-testing.rst and for a relatively
- complete overview of the power management issues related to
- drivers see :ref:`Documentation/driver-api/pm/devices.rst <driverapi_pm_devices>`.
-
-Control:
- In general if there is active maintenance of a driver by
- the author then patches will be redirected to them unless
- they are totally obvious and without need of checking.
- If you want to be the contact and update point for the
- driver it is a good idea to state this in the comments,
- and include an entry in MAINTAINERS for your driver.
-
-What Criteria Do Not Determine Acceptance
------------------------------------------
-
-Vendor:
- Being the hardware vendor and maintaining the driver is
- often a good thing. If there is a stable working driver from
- other people already in the tree don't expect 'we are the
- vendor' to get your driver chosen. Ideally work with the
- existing driver author to build a single perfect driver.
-
-Author:
- It doesn't matter if a large Linux company wrote the driver,
- or you did. Nobody has any special access to the kernel
- tree. Anyone who tells you otherwise isn't telling the
- whole story.
-
-
-Resources
----------
-
-Linux kernel master tree:
- ftp.\ *country_code*\ .kernel.org:/pub/linux/kernel/...
-
- where *country_code* == your country code, such as
- **us**, **uk**, **fr**, etc.
-
- https://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
-
-Linux kernel mailing list:
- linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
- [mail majordomo@vger.kernel.org to subscribe]
-
-Linux Device Drivers, Third Edition (covers 2.6.10):
- https://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/ (free version)
-
-LWN.net:
- Weekly summary of kernel development activity - https://lwn.net/
-
- 2.6 API changes:
-
- https://lwn.net/Articles/2.6-kernel-api/
-
- Porting drivers from prior kernels to 2.6:
-
- https://lwn.net/Articles/driver-porting/
-
-KernelNewbies:
- Documentation and assistance for new kernel programmers
-
- https://kernelnewbies.org/
-
-Linux USB project:
- http://www.linux-usb.org/
-
-How to NOT write kernel driver by Arjan van de Ven:
- https://landley.net/kdocs/ols/2002/ols2002-pages-545-555.pdf
-
-Kernel Janitor:
- https://kernelnewbies.org/KernelJanitors
-
-GIT, Fast Version Control System:
- https://git-scm.com/
projects / linux.git / commitdiff