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authorNikos Mavrogiannopoulos <nmav@gnutls.org>2018-11-22 17:36:17 +0100
committerNikos Mavrogiannopoulos <nmav@gnutls.org>2018-11-28 20:04:01 +0100
commit25176917235c1988ef46dd2ec70c1b82a2d59e4e (patch)
treed0fe45b142fed3366ede8bec1f681c2668ff6b76 /CONTRIBUTING.md
parent255ea4ae37c7b08fbe1cfb76a95f95882f5cd1fd (diff)
downloadgnutls-25176917235c1988ef46dd2ec70c1b82a2d59e4e.tar.gz
CONTRIBUTING.md: proposal for new features/modifications approach [ci skip]
Signed-off-by: Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos <nmav@gnutls.org>
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@@ -135,6 +135,24 @@ The above do not apply to the C++ library; this library's ABI should not
be considered stable.
+# Introducing new features / modifying behavior
+
+ When a new feature is introduced which may affect already deployed code,
+it must be disabled by default. For example a new TLS extension should be
+enabled when explicitly requested by the application. That can happen for
+example with a gnutls_init() flag.
+
+The same should be followed when an existing function behavior is modified
+in a way that may break existing applications which use the API in a
+reasonable way. If the existing function allows flags, then a new flag
+should be introduced to enable the new behavior.
+
+When it is necessary, or desireable to enable the new features by default
+(e.g., TLS1.3 introduction), the "next" releases should be used (and
+introduced if necessary), to allow the modification to be tested for an
+extended amount of time.
+
+
# API documentation
When introducing a new API, we provide the function documentation as