How to request a freedesktop.org account

The good news is ... you don't need to!

For almost all freedesktop.org projects, you can simply register with our GitLab instance and immediately contribute back through issues and merge requests. At the maintainer's discretion, they may give you access to directly push your own code to the project.

Most projects should have a CONTRIBUTING file in their main repository, describing how you can get started by contributing code. Usually this will involve pushing a new feature or bugfix in your own fork of the repository, then contributing this back via a GitLab merge request, where the project reviewers and maintainers may ask you to make some changes before they can merge it. For some projects, a mail-based workflow is used, where you have to email your patches to a mailing list. These instructions should be clearly documented by the project.

Wiki accounts

To be able to edit wiki pages at freedesktop.org, you don't need an SSH account, you need a wiki account. These are easy to get, requiring just the assistance of someone with an ssh account. Check out the 401 unauthorized page for instructions.

Legacy SSH accounts

If you would like to contribute to the kernel repositories (drm, drm-firmware, drm-misc, drm-tip, drm-amd, drm-intel), then in this case you still need a SSH account. In this case, please file an issue on freedesktop/freedesktop and choose the 'New SSH account' template from the drop-down on the top left.