Working with the kernel development community

So you want to be a Linux kernel developer? Welcome! While there is a lot to be learned about the kernel in a technical sense, it is also important to learn about how our community works. Reading these documents will make it much easier for you to get your changes merged with a minimum of trouble.

An introduction to how kernel development works

Read these documents first: an understanding of the material here will ease your entry into the kernel community.

Tools and technical guides for kernel developers

This is a collection of material that kernel developers should be familiar with.

Policy guides and developer statements

These are the rules that we try to live by in the kernel community (and beyond).

Dealing with bugs

Bugs are a fact of life; it is important that we handle them properly. The documents below describe our policies around the handling of a couple of special classes of bugs: regressions and security problems.

Maintainer information

How to find the people who will accept your patches.

Other material

Here are some other guides to the community that are of interest to most developers:

These are some overall technical guides that have been put here for now for lack of a better place.