CVS access policy, branching/tagging, code review, etc.

[Mike A. Harris]

This topic has been asked a lot recently by people in IRC and
elsewhere, but nobody is quite sure yet what exactly the official
answers are, or who in particular decides.  Since this is 
intended to be an open community project, I figured the best 
place to post my query was probably here for open discussion, 
rather than to any specific individual(s).

We need to put together guidelines for how:

- Does one gain CVS write access to the repository, who needs to 
  be contacted, what steps need to happen before access is 
  granted (if any), who decides, etc.
- what the official do's and dont's are in the tree
- what happens if someone commits something non-trivial without 
  proper code review, which others believe should not have been 
  committed, or which horribly breaks the tree, etc.
- A specific guideline for the naming of CVS tags, branches, etc.
- What type of checkins are permitted into particular branches
- What happens if someone consistently violates the accepted 
  written or defacto policies and shows disregard for the 
  established guidelines repeatedly.

As well as some simple guidlines on how:
- to properly tag the tree with a particular tag
- to branch properly
- to import external code into the repository such as 
  Mesa/Xft/Xrender/etc. (ie: tag/import/tag/cleanup, or whatever)

And for code review:
- What types of fixes/checkins are considered ok to do without 
  review (and on which branches, and during what phases of 
  development).
- What types of changes ALWAYS require review either via bugzilla 
  filing or email list posting and having one or more people 
  "ACK" (acknowledge) the fix is acceptable for the tree, or 
  "NACK" it indicating it is unacceptable, and providing a reason 
  why.
- What types of changes are good ideas, or worth exploration in 
  the future, but are not acceptable changes for the current 
  goals of releasing a stable release as soon as possible, such 
  as Phase2/Phase3 type of work, source code beautification, 
  lindent, etc.

I've been putting together a document for some of this, with 
plans on posting it when it's more complete, however I think now 
is a good time to harvest some thoughts from the other 
participants as well.  I can then use this feedback in my first 
draft, and when it's ready, I can post it to the list.

Constructive comments and feedback are appreciated.

TIA

-- 
Mike A. Harris