Introduction
This is a quick introduction into VLC development, how to communicate and coordinate with the other developers, get the source code and how to submit your changes back.
Communicating
The most important part is how to communicate with other VLC developers.
Chat (IRC)
A lot of communication happens via Internet Relay Chat (IRC) on the #videolan chatroom (“channel”) on Freenode. To join the chat you can either use a IRC client program or the Webchat. The recommended way is to use a IRC client program as it makes it easier to stay connected and online in the chat for longer time.
Popular clients are:
- HexChat (Windows/Linux/macOS)
- Quassel IRC (Windows/Linux/macOS)
- Textual (macOS)
Mailinglist (ML)
For longer discussions and to follow the overall development, there is the vlc-devel mailinglist. The mailing list is mostly used for submissions of source code patches and review and discussion of these patches. Additionally important announcements are made on this list, so it is strongly recommended to subscribe to that list.
All emails to that list are publicly archived and can be browser using a web interface. Patches sent to that list will be additionally available on Patchwork.
Subscribe the List Browse archives
Bugtracker (Trac)
To keep track of all Bugreports and to plan Milestones, VLC currently has a Trac instance. There tickets can be created for bugs or feature requests, and it is a good place to find things to work on.
Before filing new bugs, make sure you’ve read the bug report guidelines which detail how to write a useful report and which information need to be in it and how to obtain them.
Getting the Source
If you want to contribute code to VLC, you need to get familiar with how to get the source code. All VideoLAN projects use the Git SCM for their code. In case you are not familiar with git yet, make sure you get a basic understanding about how Git works before you continue, as this is essential and not covered by this developer documentation.
Most VideoLAN projects are nowadays hosted at the VideoLAN GitLab instance, some projects, noticeably VLC itself is still hosted on the old Git server at git.videolan.org and can be browsed using the Gitweb interface. For more information about the Git workflow for VLC check out the dedicated Git page.
Submitting patches
Once you’ve worked on a feature or fixed a bug, to submit your code back you need to send a patch to the mailinglist. The easiest way to do this is using the git format-patch and git send-email commands. More details how to use them and which conventions we expect can be found on the “Submitting patches” page.