WineHQ

Developers

Revision as of 20:01, 20 January 2016 by RosanneDiMesio (talk | contribs) (→‎Other Aspects: Changing Winelib link to point to the official docs; the wiki page hasn't been updated in over 2 years.)

If you're interested in contributing code to Wine, getting started can be daunting. Wine is an ambitious project, with a large codebase, a lot of history, and a strong emphasis on code quality. The resources below should give you an idea of how to start making your way through both the source code and the development protocols that have evolved over the years.

Getting Started

References and FAQs

Working with Other Developers

Sometimes the best way to get some help is to talk with other developers. While other contributors are often busy, focused, well-informed discussions and questions are encouraged and should not be ignored.

  • Discussions primarily take place on Wine's mailing lists. The developers' list in particular is the place to discuss changes to the software (be sure to subscribe before emailing a list, or else your mail will probably be filtered out as spam).
  • There are a couple of IRC channels, although depending on timing and urgency, you may not always get a response.
  • You can see what some of the other contributors are working on by reading the Who's Who or Acknowledgements. Some contributors also have personal pages on the wiki.
  • The Wine project has been overseen by Alexandre Julliard for many years now, and as a result, a Wine hacker's informal reputation for writing quality code is known eponymously as a Julliard Rank. Although earning and maintaining this good reputation is key to becoming a successful contributor, the community tries to be helpful and does not expect anyone to be perfect, so don't feel discouraged :-)
  • If you're interested in possibly meeting other programmers in person, WineConf is an annual, offline meeting for Wine developers.
  • If you are a student with an interesting feature or solution to a problem, you might consider applying to work on Wine as part of Google's Summer Of Code too.

Working with the Code

  • Wine currently uses git to manage all source code, in order to grab your own copy of the code, look at the Git Wine Tutorial. There are also some hints on using Git Branches to manage your work.
  • There is also a short page about browsing the Source Code online and downloading code for other portions of the project.
  • When you're ready to share some of your changes with everyone, be sure to follow the guidelines for Submitting Patches.

Building from Source

You probably want to see the page on Building Wine. You can also look in Category:Distributions to see if your distro has its own page. If so, there might be specifics about the dependencies and build process for your system.

Other Aspects

There are other aspects of the project besides the main program itself, and these can also sometimes use a programmer's touch.

  • For info specifically on testing and bug-hunting, try visiting Debugging Hints and the Bugs page, especially the section "for developers."
  • Things such as the website and documentation also have moving parts besides content. For more details, see the pages for Designers and Writers.
  • There are some tips for those interested in Packaging Wine for different distros and platforms.
  • Interested in porting the source code of your Windows-native application to Unix? Consider looking into Winelib.
  • If you currently contribute to an upstream project that Wine uses, you may be able to help with features needed from other projects. (Page needs updating.)

Tasks and To-Dos

  • The TodoList is a top-level list of things that need to be done for the Wine project. This is a good first place to look if you're not sure what could use work.
  • To see what major features or improvements would be necessary for a new stable release of Wine, see the WineReleaseCriteria.
  • IntegrationProjects are ideas for making Wine and Windows applications run more seamlessly with the underlying OS.
  • Fun Projects probably aren't critical, but they are interesting and may help make Wine more robust by getting it to run in unexpected situations (i.e. "hack value")
  • JanitorialProjects involve cleaning up Wine's source code to prevent bugs and make it easier to read. These tasks are usually repetitive and may involve some scripting and code analysis.
  • A few Usability improvements have also been proposed.

Resources on Specific Topics

There are actually dozens of pages related to specific components and features in Wine. You may find it easier to simply try searching for the topic you're interested in. However, a few categories have been created to make finding things a little quicker.

  • Category:DLLs consists of all pages about a specific component of the Windows API
  • Category:Architecture contains entries about porting Wine to different hardware architectures
  • Category:Compilers contains pages for different compilers that people have attempted building Wine with.

See Also

  • A short list of some InterestingPatches that might be helpful to study or add to Wine in some situations.
  • WineStatus contains links to reports (many out-of-date right now) about Wine's current status.
  • The Wine program, website, documentation, and wiki use the GNU Lesser General Public License 2.1.

This page was last edited on 20 January 2016, at 20:01.