Re: [PATCH 2/2] gitlog-to-changelog: support 'tiny change' commits.

[Gary V. Vaughan]

Hi Jim,

On 15 Nov 2011, at 18:14, Jim Meyering wrote:
> Gary V. Vaughan wrote:
>> I think 'Copyright-paper-required: No' is still the best compromise here for
>> the reasons stated earlier in the thread.
>> 
>> Okay to push?
>> 
>> The FSF require that all non-trivial patches to its projects be
>> accompanied by appropriate paperwork, or that any patches that are
>> applied without that paperwork are marked as such in the
>> ChangeLog.
>> * gitlog-to-changelog: Convert `Copyright-paperwork-required: No'
>> lines from the git log message to standard `(tiny change)'
>> ChangeLog annotation.
>> * scripts/git-hooks/commit-msg: Diagnose redundant or malformed
>> Copyright-paperwork-required lines.
> 
> This is setting FSF policy,

Well, the policy is already set very clearly...

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

   "If a person contributes more than around 15 lines of code and/or text
    that is legally significant for copyright purposes, we need copyright
    papers for that contribution..."

   "If that is not so, you can install the small patch. Write ‘(tiny change)’
    after the patch author’s name, like this:

      2002-11-04  Robert Fenk  <address@hidden>  (tiny change)"

> and commit logs (at least on "master")
> are typically immutable, so I'd rather you defer pushing until
> the maintainer's guide endorses some precise syntax.

The syntax of the git commit log entry is not exposed in the distribution,
which is partly why we have `gitlog-to-changelog' to make sure we *do*
distribute a ChangeLog set out as required by the gnu maintainer docs.

> I don't want
> to end up mandating one syntax and then find out later that some
> other syntax is preferred.

I'm almost certain that there is no precedent in GNU projects for git
log syntax to denote the "(tiny change)" annotation required in GNU
ChangeLog entries, generated or otherwise.  If there is some other
syntax used by another project that also uses gitlog-to-changelog, they
can either patch the script to parse their syntax using gnulib-tool's
local patching mechanism, or submit such a patch upstream to bug-gnulib
for inclusion in the gitlog-to-changelog.  Either way, I don't forsee
any problems.

> For example, I have a slight preference
> for a semantically positive tag like "Copyright-paperwork-exempt:".

That seems fine to me too.

Rather than stalling, what's the next step to keep things in motion?

Cheers,
-- 
Gary V. Vaughan (gary AT gnu DOT org)