Lab 1 - Code Review

The purpose of this lab is to explore code review processes used in open source projects. We had to select two open source project that have different licenses.

Amarok
The first project I looked at was called Amarok. This is a iTunes like music player for Linux, Unix and Windows. https://amarok.kde.org/. This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

There are a few ways you can contribute to this project:

• Create artwork for the application
• Write code in C++ using the Qt and KDELibs toolkits
• Write scripts that expand the application

To start contributing they recommend you take a look at the bugs and see if you can help with any bugs. Their bugtrackingsystem can be found at: https://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=amarok

All the code that you write must be submitted to their reviewboard which can be found at https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/groups/amarok/?show-closed=1&page=1.

On this reviewboard all the members can comment on your contribution. However there are only a few members with commit rights. So when members comment that the code looks good and would be a nice addition, they'll most likely comment that someone with commit access should push this to the master branch. An example I found: https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/120930/#review69630

A more recent example of an actual submission: https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/2/

Here you can see that normal members comment on it and say to ship it, and a member with commit access commits the code. 

Chromium

The second project I looked at was Chromium, an open-source browser behind google chrome: http://www.chromium.org/Home. This project is licesned under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

There are three major paths you can take to contribute to Chromium:

• You have a new idea
• You want to change exicting code
• You want to work on an existing bug

When you have a new idea you want to add to Chromium you first have to post your idea to a discussion group. In this group they'll discuss if your idea if worth adding to the application. I couldn't find an example of this, because their discussion group is also for many other problems. It can be found here: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!forum/chromium-discuss

If you want to change existing code, you have to contact the person who originally wrote the code and ask if your idea would be good to add. 

Not all bugs in their system are assigned, so if it's not assigned youre allowed to pick it up and assign it to yourself. If the bug you want is already assigned you can contact the person it's assigned to and ask if you could help or take over. It's also possible to file your own bug and work on it, but these bugs cannot be whole new ideas. These bugs have to be nontrivial, like simple cleanups and style fixes. The listed bugs can be found here: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/list

To submit your code you have to add it to the code review site: https://codereview.chromium.org/ 

Your code will be reviewd within 24-48 hours, if the patch is not too big. All members can comment on your code and give you feedback. Only some members have commit access. An exmaple I found: https://codereview.chromium.org/1650283002/

Overall Chromuim takes communication very seriously, if you're working on something you need to keep communicating to relevant people otherwise you might have a hard time getting your code reviewed.