| Contributing to iPXE |
| ==================== |
| |
| Thank you for wanting to help to improve iPXE! Your contributions can |
| help to make the software better for everyone. |
| |
| iPXE is [licensed][licence] under the GNU GPL and is 100% open source |
| software. There are no "premium edition" versions, no in-app |
| advertisements, no hidden costs. The version that you get to download |
| and use forever for free is the definitive and only version of the |
| software. |
| |
| There are several ways in which you can contribute: |
| |
| Bug reports |
| ----------- |
| |
| Good quality [bug reports][issues] are always extremely welcome. |
| Please describe exactly what you are trying to achieve, and the exact |
| problem that you are encountering. Include a screenshot or a |
| transcription of the output from iPXE (including the exact text of any |
| error messages). |
| |
| If you are not sure whether or not your issue is due to a bug in iPXE, |
| please consider creating a [discussion][discussions] instead of an |
| issue. |
| |
| Bug fix pull requests |
| --------------------- |
| |
| Short and simple [pull requests][pulls] that fix a known [bug][issues] |
| are always welcome. Please ensure that your pull request allows |
| maintainer edits, since there is a 99% chance that it will need to be |
| rebased, reworded, or otherwise modified before being merged. |
| |
| Minor feature pull requests |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| A small [pull request][pulls] that adds a very minor feature has some |
| chance of being merged. |
| |
| As a bootloader, iPXE is an unusual programming environment: code size |
| is extremely small (measured in bytes or kilobytes), you absolutely |
| cannot use any external libraries, heap size is very limited and you |
| should expect memory allocations to fail, various operations may not |
| be used in some contexts (e.g. on network fast paths), and cooperative |
| multitasking is implemented using event-driven non-blocking object |
| interfaces. You will need to be aware of external interoperability |
| requirements and firmware quirks dating back to the 1990s. |
| |
| In most cases, an [issue report][issues] describing the desired |
| feature is likely to get a better result than an unsolicited pull |
| request. |
| |
| Major feature pull requests |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| A large [pull request][pulls] that adds a substantial new feature |
| (e.g. a new device driver, a new cryptographic algorithm, a new script |
| command, etc) has very little chance of being merged unless an |
| appropriate level of [funding][funding] is provided to cover the time |
| required for several rounds of code review. |
| |
| Please be aware that thorough code review is generally **more work** |
| than code creation. The cost to review a major feature will therefore |
| generally be more expensive than the cost of simply [funding][funding] |
| the development of the feature instead. |
| |
| Any externally developed features are **not eligible** to be signed |
| for UEFI Secure Boot, and will be automatically excluded from all |
| Secure Boot builds of iPXE. |
| |
| Funding |
| ------- |
| |
| Small donations from individual users via [GitHub Sponsors][sponsors] |
| are always welcome, and help to purchase the coffee that forms the raw |
| material from which iPXE is made. |
| |
| Around half of the development work on iPXE is commercially funded. |
| Any code that is commercially funded will be pushed to the public iPXE |
| repository and made immediately available to everyone under the terms |
| of the GNU GPL. Funded development has included many widely used |
| features: |
| |
| * Support for 64-bit CPUs |
| * Support for UEFI firmware |
| * Support for USB NICs |
| * Support for the Intel 10GbE, 40GbE, and 100GbE NICs |
| * Support for [iSCSI and other SAN booting methods][sanboot] |
| * Support for [TLS and HTTPS][crypto] |
| * Support for [AWS EC2][ec2] and [Google Cloud][gce] public clouds |
| |
| As noted above, funding the development of a major feature is |
| generally cheaper than developing it yourself and then funding the |
| code review to get it fixed up and merged. |
| |
| Any funded development work is automatically eligible to be signed for |
| UEFI Secure Boot. |
| |
| To discuss funding an iPXE development, please send an email to |
| <vendor-support@ipxe.org>, or create an [issue][issues] and mention |
| that you would be interested in providing funding. |
| |
| |
| [crypto]: https://ipxe.org/crypto |
| [discussions]: https://github.com/ipxe/ipxe/discussions |
| [ec2]: https://ipxe.org/howto/ec2 |
| [funding]: #funding |
| [gce]: https://ipxe.org/howto/gce |
| [issues]: https://github.com/ipxe/ipxe/issues |
| [licence]: COPYING |
| [pulls]: https://github.com/ipxe/ipxe/pulls |
| [sanboot]: https://ipxe.org/cmd/sanboot |
| [sponsors]: https://github.com/sponsors/ipxe |
