How to contribute
Thank you for your interest in contributing to Qubes! Here are some of the many ways in which you can help:
Audit the source code
Send patches to fix bugs or implement features
Submit HCL reports for your hardware
Record video tours
Create artwork (plymouth themes, installer themes, wallpapers, etc.)
Donate to the project
If you represent an organization, become a Qubes partner
Add a Qubes download mirror
Answer questions and discuss Qubes on the mailing lists and forum
Engage with us on social media:
And last but not least, tell your friends and colleagues about how Qubes can help them secure their digital lives!
Contributing code
If you’re interested in contributing code, the best starting point is to have a look at our GitHub issues to see which tasks are the most urgent. You can filter issues depending on your interest and experience. For example, here are some common issue labels:
Before you engage in an activity that will take you a significant amount of time, like implementing a new feature, it’s always good to contact us first, preferably via the qubes-devel mailing list. Once we’ve worked out the details, we’ll be grateful to receive your patch.
Using AI in contributions
If you use generative AI in your contributions, you must disclose this at the time you submit your contribution. If you do not disclose use of generative AI, and the reviewer has reason to believe that it has been used, your contribution is likely to be deprioritized and may be denied without further review, at the discretion of the reviewer. If you intentionally and repeatedly fail to disclose your use of generative AI in a way that is disruptive for the project or its reviewers you may be banned from further contributions or, in severe cases, from participating in the project altogether.
All contributions to the Qubes OS Project are carefully reviewed by humans to evaluate whether they meet the project’s standards. Generative AI allows potential contributors to generate large amounts of content quickly and at near-zero cost. If these contributions are of high quality, they will be welcome. Unfortunately, however, they are often of low quality, in which case it is easy for even a single GenAI-assisted contributor to overwhelm the entire project’s human review capacity.
Regardless of how your content was created, you will be considered the fully-accountable author of that content, and you are responsible for reviewing & fixing such output before submitting it.
This policy applies to every way in which you may contribute to, or interact with, the project, including (but not limited to) code, patches, packages, issue tracking, reporting security issues, documentation, artwork, discussion forums, mailing lists, social media, chat, and email.