[Xorg] next steps with the xorg tree

[Egbert Eich]

Roland Mainz writes:
 > 
 > Is there no way to automate this and get a cron job create the changelog
 > ?

Not a cron job but some script that cvs triggers with a commit.
I need to see how this can be done though. Until then I'd encourage
everybody to use this changelog.

 > Actually this leads to the next issue: What about setting-up a
 > "commit"/"checkin"-policy that issues should be commited to the CVS in
 > "one-issue per commit" mode and each change MUST have a matching
 > bugzilla URL (in the commit message) where the change is described (e.g.
 > similar like mozilla.org and many companies manage their tree) ? The
 > advantage would be that CVSblame could be used to lookup the bugzilla
 > bug and people could look there for additional information or drop
 > comments there...

Yes, thank you. I've been advocating to have a commit policy for 
a long time.
I would not encourage strict requirements such as:
- MUST have a bugzilla entry
  We need to see: maybe a trouble ticket system is the way to go.
  On the other hand having problems finding anything in bugzilla
  myself I don't see a point in having this for every commit.
  Instead the log entry should be conclusive and point to the
  ticket number if one exists.
- one issue per commit.
When fixing little issues it may take longer to generate this entry 
than making the fix.
Also one issue per commit may not be feasable. From my experience I
sometimes fix several small issues per day and only do one commit.

The general guidelines should be:
- Put untested new stuff into your own branch.
- If you fix things and are not sure what you are doing *ASK*.
- Not every newbie should be allowed to throw things into the
  CURRENT branch - unless they are either obvious or someone
  has reviewed the stuff.
This plus a branching policy like the DRI folks have sounds rather
sane to me. 

 > 
 > In general I would vote for this mode since it is the easiest... :)
 > I doubt there is the manpower available review each single line of
 > change for any "bad license" stuff and then obmit the missing patches.
 > Sooner or later it will be impossible do simple imports since the
 > codebases started to differ.

Unfortunately people feel there may be issues with that.
Detecting 'contaminated' files could be scripted.

Yes, with time the code base will differ so much that a blind import
will not work any longer. I guess the hope is that by then this import 
will not be required any longer.
However to the key to this does not solely lie in XFree86's court ;-)

 > BTW: Is it possible to import the Xfree86 sources in a way that the
 > "commit messages" in the Xfree86 tree are preserved ?
 > 

Unlikely. What will be preserved is the CHANGELOG.

Egbert.