We are accepting patches
Patch requirements
If you have a patch and have severe problems to get it into the Mozilla tree,
you may want to ask the Beonex project to accept patch. Generally, we welcome
patches under the following conditions:
- Beonex is a user agent in the full sense of the word. Meaning that
we are acting on behalf of the user, not the web site. We do what the user
(probably) wants, whenever possible/reasonable. If there is a conflict of
interest between the site and the user (e.g. referrers), and mozilla.org
chose the site's side, please point us to it, so that we can take the route
that favors the user.
- The only goal that goes above user wishes is what I call "net sanity".
Beonex should follow standards where possible, advocate netiquette (e.g.
by following GNKSA), respect other people's rights and do what's good for everybody in the long term.
- Patches which increase the security or privacy are very welcome.
- Patches which can't get into Mozilla because of problems in mozilla.org's
organization. If the reviewers don't respond or politics are holding up a certain patch, you can suggest it to
Beonex.
We are generally not interested in patches which are
- highly controversial. If half of the users are for it and the other half against it, we'll probably stick to mozilla.org's decision.
Note that Beonex is not a "fork". We track Mozilla's progress and our changes
are easy and ready to be integrated into Mozilla, if mozilla.org chooses
so. In fact, Beonex Communicator currently lives as a branch in mozilla.org's
CVS.
Checkin/Contributor requirements
In any case, if you submit code, we must have reasonable confidence in it. It is extremely important that no security holes sneak in (on accident or on purpose). You should meet at least one of the following criteria:
- A well-known Beonex contributor vouches for you.
- A well-known Beonex contributor carefully reviewed and approved your patch.
- You have a track record of good patches included in Mozilla.
You notice that our checkin requirements are much less stringent than mozilla.org's.
I (Ben Bucksch) do not believe in generally mandatory reviews, but in the
responsibility of contributors. We can always back out checkins. If we have
to do that several times for you, you will be punished by falling back to
"unknown" status and thus having to have your patches reviewed by a well-known
contributor.
Patches checked into the Beonex tree also must be approved by someone specifically
authorized to do that. This approval basically just checks that the patch
is a good idea at all and that all the requirements are met.
Feedback about these rules is welcome. It is in general a good idea to subscribe/post to the development lists, if you're interested in helping with Beonex development.