From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Is it time to drop ChangeLogs? Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2016 08:47:45 +0200 Message-ID: <83oaamn81a.fsf@gnu.org> References: <83vb50wxhv.fsf@gnu.org> <87y49vz4cg.fsf@acer.localhost.com> <64a52598-ad53-498c-993c-67d7827dbdfc@default> <838u1uuuau.fsf@gnu.org> <878u1um2xl.fsf@thinkpad.rath.org> <87fuw090k7.fsf@wanadoo.es> <83y49spuxt.fsf@gnu.org> <87pov4achc.fsf@acer.localhost.com> <83r3fkpb3u.fsf@gnu.org> <83lh5rps0t.fsf@gnu.org> <56E066BD.5050403@cs.ucla.edu> <87lh5rv7kk.fsf@red-bean.com> <83pov3o62y.fsf@gnu.org> <87bn6nv3yw.fsf@red-bean.com> <838u1ro10g.fsf@gnu.org> <56E0B42D.4060509@cs.ucla.edu> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1457592481 3679 80.91.229.3 (10 Mar 2016 06:48:01 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2016 06:48:01 +0000 (UTC) Cc: kfogel@red-bean.com, johnw@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Paul Eggert Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Mar 10 07:48:00 2016 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1aduO5-0007Gv-1z for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 10 Mar 2016 07:47:57 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:46585 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aduO1-00029M-FJ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 10 Mar 2016 01:47:53 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:44997) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aduNn-00026f-Gn for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 10 Mar 2016 01:47:40 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aduNm-00081F-Eu for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 10 Mar 2016 01:47:39 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:35229) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aduNh-0007yS-VX; Thu, 10 Mar 2016 01:47:33 -0500 Original-Received: from 84.94.185.246.cable.012.net.il ([84.94.185.246]:4847 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:128) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1aduNg-0006nt-Gx; Thu, 10 Mar 2016 01:47:33 -0500 In-reply-to: <56E0B42D.4060509@cs.ucla.edu> (message from Paul Eggert on Wed, 9 Mar 2016 15:39:25 -0800) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:201351 Archived-At: > Cc: johnw@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org > From: Paul Eggert > Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2016 15:39:25 -0800 > > On 03/09/2016 12:21 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > it's fortress -- if you dismantle one of its bastions, the others > > will soon fall as well. > > It's not a fortress, as is demonstrated in other GNU projects. For > example, here are the last three commit messages for coreutils, which > has been using the proposed approach since 2008. These commit messages > are just as good as what we typically see for Emacs. Maybe better. I'm > sure we can improve the quality of Emacs commit messages, but putting > them into ChangeLog files is not necessary or even all that helpful for > doing so. > > commit e735d417fb2e5c7427b3622f2a78e65e450b49a8 > Author: Eric Blake > Date: Tue Mar 8 16:01:34 2016 -0700 If I could by some magic wand make a few distinguished individuals become part of the Emacs team, and never give write access to anyone else, then those two would certainly be on the list. And then we could simply forget about the problems we are arguing ab out, because they would have become nonexistent. But as long as we are trying to make Emacs development be more crowdware (which I think is a correct direction, given that Emacs is a very large collection of loosely-related packages), we cannot rely on the high quality of log messages produced by the individual contributors, because many of them will only casually contribute, and won't have the kind of experience and habits that Eric and Jim have. We must have a convenient way of correcting the log messages. The alternative is to give push rights to a very few individuals, and have a patch review process through which the log messages could be corrected before pushing, but that requires more manpower than we currently have, so it cannot be used for now.