Re: Contributions: Adding New Devices

[Connor Kuehl <ckuehl@redhat.com>]

On 6/30/21 7:01 AM, Federico Vaga wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I can't find this information on the website, so here I am.
> 
> I developed a QEMU device that virtualises a PCI card that we widely use at CERN.
> But this card is only used at CERN.
> 
> Clearly, having CERN specific devices in QEMU does not help much the qemu
> community, hence I maintain an internal QEMU fork.
> 
> But, I was wondering what is the QEMU policy about contributions that are known to be
> used only by a handful of people (one organization in this case)? Are they accepted?

Your first instinct is correct that it's unlikely that the community
will be able to maintain a device if it's really so niche as to only
be used at your organization.

However, if you do decide to try to upstream it, it could only help
your chances if you or some of your colleagues agreed to maintain it
for the QEMU community. This mainly involves adding an entry to the
MAINTAINERS file where, if accepted, the expectation is that you'll
be reachable within reason to review patches, make pull requests,
help discuss bugs in the subsystem, etc.

Sorry I don't have a concrete "yes" or "no" for you; but I'd recommend
giving it a shot if you have the time.

Connor