| I started reading over the SubmittingPatches document for Linux |
| kernel, primarily because I wanted to have a document similar to |
| it for the core GIT to make sure people understand what they are |
| doing when they write "Signed-off-by" line. |
| |
| But the patch submission requirements are a lot more relaxed |
| here, because the core GIT is thousand times smaller ;-). So |
| here is only the relevant bits. |
| |
| |
| (1) Make separate commits for logically separate changes. |
| |
| Unless your patch is really trivial, you should not be sending |
| out a patch that was generated between your working tree and |
| your commit head. Instead, always make a commit with complete |
| commit message and generate a series of patches from your |
| repository. It is a good discipline. |
| |
| Describe the technical detail of the change(s). |
| |
| If your description starts to get long, that's a sign that you |
| probably need to split up your commit to finer grained pieces. |
| |
| |
| (2) Generate your patch using git/cogito out of your commits. |
| |
| git diff tools generate unidiff which is the preferred format. |
| You do not have to be afraid to use -M option to "git diff" or |
| "git format-patch", if your patch involves file renames. The |
| receiving end can handle them just fine. |
| |
| Please make sure your patch does not include any extra files |
| which do not belong in a patch submission. Make sure to review |
| your patch after generating it, to ensure accuracy. Before |
| sending out, please make sure it cleanly applies to the "master" |
| branch head. |
| |
| |
| (3) Sending your patches. |
| |
| People on the git mailing list needs to be able to read and |
| comment on the changes you are submitting. It is important for |
| a developer to be able to "quote" your changes, using standard |
| e-mail tools, so that they may comment on specific portions of |
| your code. For this reason, all patches should be submitting |
| e-mail "inline". WARNING: Be wary of your MUAs word-wrap |
| corrupting your patch. Do not cut-n-paste your patch. |
| |
| It is common convention to prefix your subject line with |
| [PATCH]. This lets people easily distinguish patches from other |
| e-mail discussions. |
| |
| "git format-patch" command follows the best current practice to |
| format the body of an e-mail message. At the beginning of the |
| patch should come your commit message, ending with the |
| Signed-off-by: lines, and a line that consists of three dashes, |
| followed by the diffstat information and the patch itself. If |
| you are forwarding a patch from somebody else, optionally, at |
| the beginning of the e-mail message just before the commit |
| message starts, you can put a "From: " line to name that person. |
| |
| You often want to add additional explanation about the patch, |
| other than the commit message itself. Place such "cover letter" |
| material between the three dash lines and the diffstat. |
| |
| Do not attach the patch as a MIME attachment, compressed or not. |
| Do not let your e-mail client send quoted-printable. Many |
| popular e-mail applications will not always transmit a MIME |
| attachment as plain text, making it impossible to comment on |
| your code. A MIME attachment also takes a bit more time to |
| process. This does not decrease the likelihood of your |
| MIME-attached change being accepted, but it makes it more likely |
| that it will be postponed. |
| |
| Exception: If your mailer is mangling patches then someone may ask |
| you to re-send them using MIME. |
| |
| Note that your maintainer does not subscribe to the git mailing |
| list (he reads it via mail-to-news gateway). If your patch is |
| for discussion first, send it "To:" the mailing list, and |
| optoinally "cc:" him. If it is trivially correct or after list |
| discussion reached consensus, send it "To:" the maintainer and |
| optionally "cc:" the list. |
| |
| |
| (6) Sign your work |
| |
| To improve tracking of who did what, we've borrowed the |
| "sign-off" procedure from the Linux kernel project on patches |
| that are being emailed around. Although core GIT is a lot |
| smaller project it is a good discipline to follow it. |
| |
| The sign-off is a simple line at the end of the explanation for |
| the patch, which certifies that you wrote it or otherwise have |
| the right to pass it on as a open-source patch. The rules are |
| pretty simple: if you can certify the below: |
| |
| Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1 |
| |
| By making a contribution to this project, I certify that: |
| |
| (a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I |
| have the right to submit it under the open source license |
| indicated in the file; or |
| |
| (b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best |
| of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source |
| license and I have the right under that license to submit that |
| work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part |
| by me, under the same open source license (unless I am |
| permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated |
| in the file; or |
| |
| (c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other |
| person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified |
| it. |
| |
| (d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution |
| are public and that a record of the contribution (including all |
| personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is |
| maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with |
| this project or the open source license(s) involved. |
| |
| then you just add a line saying |
| |
| Signed-off-by: Random J Developer <random@developer.example.org> |
| |
| Some people also put extra tags at the end. They'll just be ignored for |
| now, but you can do this to mark internal company procedures or just |
| point out some special detail about the sign-off. |