		========= Binutils Maintainers =========

This is the list of individuals responsible for maintenance and update
of the GNU Binary Utilities project.  This includes the linker (ld),
the assembler (gas), the profiler (gprof), a whole suite of other
programs (binutils) and the libraries that they use (bfd and
opcodes).  This project shares a common set of header files with the
GCC and GDB projects (include), so maintainership of those files is
shared amongst the projects.

The home page for binutils is:

  http://www.gnu.org/software/binutils/binutils.html

and patches should be sent to:

  binutils@sourceware.org

with "[Patch]" as part of the subject line.  Note - patches to the
top level config.guess and config.sub scripts should be sent to:

  config-patches@gnu.org

and not to the binutils lists.  Patches to the other top level
configure files (configure, configure.ac, config-ml.in) should
be sent to the binutils lists, and copied to the gcc and gdb
lists as well (gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org and
gdb-patches@sourceware.org).

Patches to the libiberty sources should be sent to
gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org.

		--------- Blanket Write Privs ---------

The following people have permission to check patches into the
repository without obtaining approval first:

  Nick Clifton <nickc@redhat.com> (head maintainer)
  Ian Lance Taylor <ian@airs.com>
  Jeff Law <law@redhat.com>
  Jim Wilson <wilson@tuliptree.org>
  DJ Delorie <dj@redhat.com>
  Alan Modra <amodra@gmail.com>
  Michael Meissner <gnu@the-meissners.org>
  Richard Sandiford <rdsandiford@googlemail.com>
  Jan Beulich <jbeulich@suse.com>

GDB global maintainers also have permission to commit and approve
patches to the top level files and to those parts of bfd files
primarily used by GDB.

      --------- Maintainers ---------

Maintainers are individuals who are responsible for, and have
permission to check in changes in, certain subsets of the code.  Note
that maintainers still need approval to check in changes outside of
the immediate domain that they maintain.

If there is no maintainer for a given domain then the responsibility
falls to the head maintainer (above).  If there are several
maintainers for a given domain then responsibility falls to the first
maintainer.  The first maintainer is free to devolve that
responsibility among the other maintainers.

  AARCH64	   Richard Earnshaw <rearnsha@arm.com>
  AARCH64	   Alice Carlotti <alice.carlotti@arm.com>
  ARC		   Claudiu Zissulescu <claziss@gmail.com>
  ARM		   Nick Clifton <nickc@redhat.com>
  ARM		   Richard Earnshaw <rearnsha@arm.com>
  ARM		   Ramana Radhakrishnan <ramana.radhakrishnan@arm.com>
  AVR		   Denis Chertykov <chertykov@gmail.com>
  AVR		   Marek Michalkiewicz <marekm@amelek.gda.pl>
  BFIN		   Jie Zhang <jzhang918@gmail.com>
  BPF		   Jose E. Marchesi <jose.marchesi@oracle.com>
  CRIS		   Hans-Peter Nilsson <hp@axis.com>
  CTF		   Nick Alcock <nick.alcock@oracle.com>
  C-SKY		   Lifang Xia <lifang_xia@linux.alibaba.com>
  C-SKY		   Yunhai Shang <yunhai@linux.alibaba.com>
  DLX              Nikolaos Kavvadias <nkavv@physics.auth.gr>
  DWARF2	   Jason Merrill <jason@redhat.com>
  DWARF2	   Jakub Jelinek <jakub@redhat.com>
  dwarf-mode.el    Tom Tromey <tom@tromey.com>
  EPIPHANY	   Joern Rennecke <joern.rennecke@embecosm.com>
  FR30		   Nick Clifton <nickc@redhat.com>
  FRV		   Nick Clifton <nickc@redhat.com>
  FRV		   Alexandre Oliva <aoliva@sourceware.org>
  GOLD		   Ian Lance Taylor <iant@google.com>
  GOLD		   Cary Coutant <ccoutant@gmail.com>
  gprofng	   Claudiu Zissulescu <claziss@gmail.com>
  gprofng	   Jose E. Marchesi <jemarch@gnu.org>
  HPPA		   Dave Anglin <dave.anglin@bell.net>
  HPPA elf64	   Jeff Law <law@redhat.com> [Basic maintainance only]
  ix86		   H.J. Lu <hjl.tools@gmail.com>
  ix86 COFF	   DJ Delorie <dj@redhat.com>
  ix86 PE/COFF	   Dave Korn <dave.korn.cygwin@gmail.com>
  ix86 INTEL MODE  Jan Beulich <jbeulich@suse.com>
  libsframe	   Indu Bhagat <ibhagatgnu@gmail.com>
  LM32             Jon Beniston <jon@beniston.com>
  LoongArch	   Chenghua Xu <xuchenghua@loongson.cn>
  LoongArch	   Zhensong Liu <liuzhensong@loongson.cn>
  M32R             Doug Evans <dje@sebabeach.org>
  M68HC11 M68HC12  Stephane Carrez <Stephane.Carrez@gmail.com>
  M68HC11 M68HC12  Sean Keys <skeys@ipdatasys.com>
  MACH-O           Tristan Gingold <tgingold@free.fr>
  MAXQ		   Inderpreet Singh <inderpreetb@noida.hcltech.com>
  MEP		   Nick Clifton <nickc@redhat.com>
  MICROBLAZE	   Michael Eager <eager@eagercon.com>
  MIPS		   Chenghua Xu <paul.hua.gm@gmail.com>
  MIPS I-IV	   Maciej W. Rozycki <macro@orcam.me.uk>
  MMIX		   Hans-Peter Nilsson <hp@bitrange.com>
  MN10300	   Alexandre Oliva <aoliva@sourceware.org>
  Moxie		   Anthony Green <green@moxielogic.com>
  NDS32		   Kuan-Lin Chen <kuanlinchentw@gmail.com>
  NDS32		   Wei-Cheng Wang <cole945@gmail.com>
  OR1K		   Christian Svensson <blue@cmd.nu>
  OR1K		   Stefan Kristiansson <stefan.kristiansson@saunalahti.fi>
  OR1K		   Stafford Horne <shorne@gmail.com>
  PPC		   Surya Kumari Jangala <jskumari@linux.ibm.com>
  PPC		   Peter Bergner <bergner@tenstorrent.com>
  PPC vector ext   Aldy Hernandez <aldyh@redhat.com>
  PRU		   Dimitar Dimitrov <dimitar@dinux.eu>
  RISC-V	   Palmer Dabbelt <palmer@dabbelt.com>
  RISC-V	   Andrew Waterman <andrew@sifive.com>
  RISC-V	   Jim Wilson <jim.wilson.gcc@gmail.com>
  RISC-V	   Nelson Chu <nelson.chu1990@gmail.com>
  RX               Nick Clifton <nickc@redhat.com>
  S12Z		   John Darrington <john@darrington.wattle.id.au>
  s390, s390x	   Andreas Krebbel <krebbel@linux.ibm.com>
  SH		   Alexandre Oliva <aoliva@sourceware.org>
  SPARC		   David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
  SPARC		   Jose E. Marchesi <jose.marchesi@oracle.com>
  SPU		   Alan Modra <amodra@gmail.com>
  TIC54X           Timothy Wall <twall@alum.mit.edu>
  TIC6X            Joseph Myers <josmyers@redhat.com>
  VAX		   Jan-Benedict Glaw <jbglaw@lug-owl.de>
  Visium	   Eric Botcazou <ebotcazou@libertysurf.fr>
  VMS		   Tristan Gingold <tgingold@free.fr>
  x86_64	   Jan Beulich <jbeulich@suse.com>
  x86_64	   Jan Hubicka <jh@suse.cz>
  x86_64	   H.J. Lu <hjl.tools@gmail.com>
  XGATE            Sean Keys <skeys@ipdatasys.com>
  Xtensa	   Max Filippov <jcmvbkbc@gmail.com>
  Xtensa	   Sterling Augustine <augustine.sterling@gmail.com>
  z8k		   Christian Groessler <chris@groessler.org>

      --------- Past Maintainers -------------

These folks have acted as maintainers in the past, but have now
moved on to other things.  Our thanks for all their hard work
goes with them.

  Andreas Jaeger
  Arnold Metselaar
  Bernd Schmidt
  Eric Christopher
  Geoff Keating
  Jason Eckhardt
  Jim Wilson
  M R Swami Reddy
  Mark Kettenis
  Mark Mitchell
  Martin Schwidefsky
  Matt Thomas
  Mei Ligang
  Mike Frysinger
  Paul Brook
  Paul Iannetta
  Richard Sandiford
  Svein Seldal
  Vladimir Mezentsev
  Walter Lee

      --------- CGEN Maintainers -------------

CGEN is a tool for building, amongst other things, assemblers,
disassemblers and simulators from a single description of a CPU.
It creates files in several of the binutils directories, but it
is mentioned here since there is a single group that maintains
CGEN and the files that it creates.

If you have CGEN related problems you can send email to;

   cgen@sourceware.org

The current CGEN maintainers are:

  Doug Evans, Frank Eigler

     --------- Write After Approval ---------

Individuals with "write after approval" have the ability to check in
changes, but they must get approval for each change from someone in
one of the above lists (blanket write or maintainers).

[It's a huge list, folks.  You know who you are.  If you have the
 *ability* to do binutils checkins, you're in this group.  Just
 remember to get approval before checking anything in.]

     -------------  Obvious Fixes -------------

Fixes for obvious mistakes do not need approval, and can be checked in
right away, but the patch should still be sent to the binutils list.
The definition of obvious is a bit hazy, and if you are not sure, then
you should seek approval first.  Obvious fixes include fixes for
spelling mistakes, blatantly incorrect code (where the correct code is
also blatantly obvious), and so on.  Obvious fixes should always be
small, the larger they are, the more likely it is that they contain
some un-obvious side effect or consequence.

Obvious fixes should not be "legally significant", as defined here:

  https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/maintain.html#Legally-Significant

     --------  Patches and Copyright  ---------

If a patch is non-obvious, its copyright must be considered.  There
are two ways to handle this.  The first is to assign the copyright
of the FSF.  This ensures that if problems with the authorship of the
patch arise, the FSF will be able to deal with them.

The list of already assigned copyrights can be obtained from
fencepost.gnu.org in the file: /gd/gnuorg/copyright.list. 

New copyright assignments can be obtained by completing one of the
forms found here and sending it off to the FSF:

  https://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gnulib.git;a=tree;f=doc/Copyright

The alternative is to sign off the contribution by agreeing to the
Developer's Certificate of Origin (version 1.1 or later) and adding a
line to the end of the contribution that looks something like this:

  Signed-off-by: Random J Developer <random@developer.example.org>

The details of the Developer's Certificate or Origin can be found here:
       
  https://developercertificate.org/

    --------- LLM Generated Patches ---------

The GNU Binutils project is currently *NOT* accepting LLM generated patches.

This is because the copyright status of code generated by a LLM (Large
Language Model [1]) is currently unclear.  The policy applies to all
parts of the GNU Binutils including, but not limited to, source code,
documentation and the testsuites.

There are however some exceptions to the policy:

  * Using LLMs to assist in writing code is fine providing that the
    LLM does not actually generate code.  So for example using an
    LLM to provide text to speech services or to search for published
    information is OK.

  * LLM generated code that is not "legally significant"[2] is OK.
    As a rule of thumb, this means that trivial changes, such as
    spelling corrections, or small code formatting cleanups are fine.

Using an LLM to inspire or help create a patch might be OK.  It is a
question of whether LLM generated output eventually makes it into the
patch.  If it does, then the patch is unacceptable.  (Unless it can
be considered legally insignificant).

In addition all patch submissions must involve a human.  Fully
automated patch submission, whether by a bot, a script, or some other
means is not acceptable.  This is because only humans can sign a
Developer Certificate of Origin or complete a FSF Copyright Assignment
and one of these needs to be in place for every submission.

The copyright assignment or DCO allows the GNU Binutils project to
trust that the submitter is legally able to make the contribution
and that the submission can be used under the terms of the GNU General
Public License (see the COPYING3 file).

Footnotes:

This policy is not set in stone.  It may well be reviewed and changed
in the future.

The policy uses the term "LLM generated" rather than "A.I. generated"
as the latter could be misunderstood.  See [3] for more details.
Nevertheless the policy applies to any kind of machine generated
contribution where the copyright status is unclear.

When submitting a non-legally-significant LLM generated change, it is
encouraged to clearly indicate the use of the LLM. The identification
could take the form of a line starting with the Generated-By: prefix
which identifies the LLM used. For example:   

  Generated-By: GNU-LLM version 1.0

The reason for asking for this is to set a precedent.  So in the
future, if non-trivial LLM generated patches do become acceptable,
the process of labeling them will already be a standard action.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_language_model
[2]: https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/maintain.html#Legally-Significant
[3]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.en.html#ArtificialIntelligence

    --------- Branch Checkins ---------

If a patch is approved for check in to the mainline sources, it can
also be checked into the current release branch.  Normally however
only bug fixes should be applied to the branch.  New features, new
ports, etc, should be restricted to the mainline.  (Otherwise the
burden of maintaining the branch in sync with the mainline becomes too
great).  If you are uncertain as to whether a patch is appropriate for
the branch, ask the branch maintainer.  This is:

   (cf global maintainers)

    -------- Testsuites ---------------

In general patches to any of the binutils testsuites should be
considered generic and sent to the binutils mailing list for
approval.  Patches to target specific tests are the responsibility the
relevant port maintainer(s), and can be approved/checked in by them.
Other testsuite patches need the approval of a blanket-write-priveleges
person.

    -------- Configure patches ----------

Patches to the top level configure files (config.sub & config.guess)
are not the domain of the binutils project and they cannot be approved
by the binutils group.  Instead they should be submitted to the config
maintainer at:

	config-patches@gnu.org

    --------- Creating Branches ---------

Anyone with at least write-after-approval access may create a branch
to use for their own development purposes.  In keeping with FSF
policies, all patches applied to such a branch must come from people
with appropriate copyright assignments on file.  All legal
requirements that would apply to any other contribution apply equally
to contributions on a branch.

Before creating the branch, you should select a name for the branch of
the form:

  binutils-<org>-<name>

where "org" is the initials of your organization, or your own initials
if you are acting as an individual.  For example, for a branch created
by The GNUDist Company, "tgc" would be an appropriate choice for
"org".  It's up to each organization to select an appropriate choice
for "name"; some organizations may use more structure than others, so
"name" may contain additional hyphens.

Suppose that The GNUDist Company was creating a branch to develop a
port of Binutils to the FullMonty processor.  Then, an appropriate
choice of branch name would be:

  binutils-tgc-fm

A date stamp is not required as part of the name field, but some
organizations like to have one.  If you do include the date, you
should follow these rules:

1. The date should be the date that the branch was created.

2. The date should be numerical and in the form YYYYMMDD.

For example:

  binutils-tgc-fm_20050101

would be appropriate if the branch was created on January 1st, 2005.

Having selected the branch name, create the branch as follows:

1. Check out binutils, so that you have a git checkout corresponding
   to the initial state of your branch.

2. Create a tag:

     git tag binutils-<org>-<name>-branchpoint

   That tag will allow you, and others, to easily determine what's
   changed on the branch relative to the initial state.

3. Create and push the branch:

     git checkout -b binutils-<org>-<name>-branch
     git push origin HEAD

4. Document the branch:

     Add a description of the branch to binutils/BRANCHES, and check
     that file in.  All branch descriptions should be added to the
     HEAD revision of the file; it doesn't help to modify
     binutils/BRANCHES on a branch!

Please do not commit any patches to a branch you did not create
without the explicit permission of the person who created the branch.

Copyright (C) 2012-2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
notice and this notice are preserved.
