Requirements for submitting patches to EVMS
===========================================

These criteria are derived from the ones used for submitting patches
to the Linux kernel.


What Criteria Determine Acceptance
----------------------------------

Licensing:      The code must be released to us under the
                GNU General Public License.

Copyright:      The copyright owner must agree to the 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 copright owner.


Signing Your Work
-----------------

To improve tracking of who did what, especially with patches that can
percolate to their final resting place in EVMS, we've introduced a
"sign-off" procedure on patches that are being emailed around.

The sign-off is a simple line at the end of the explanation for the
patch, which certifies that you wrote it or otherwise have the right to
pass it on as a open-source patch.  The rules are pretty simple: if you
can certify the below:

        Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1

        By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:

        (a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I
            have the right to submit it under the open source license
            indicated in the file; or

        (b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best
            of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source
            license and I have the right under that license to submit that
            work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part
            by me, under the same open source license (unless I am
            permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated
            in the file; or

        (c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other
            person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified
            it.

        (d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution
            are public and that a record of the contribution (including all
            personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is
            maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with
            this project or the open source license(s) involved.

then you just add a line saying

        Signed-off-by: Random J Developer <random@developer.example.org>

Some people also put extra tags at the end.  They'll just be ignored for
now, but you can do this to mark internal company procedures or just
point out some special detail about the sign-off. 

