CONTRIBUTE and where to commit bug fixes

CONTRIBUTE and where to commit bug fixes

[Michael Heerdegen]

Hello,

As an occasional contributor I'm often unsure about to which branch a
bug fix or change should be committed to.  In CONTRIBUTE we have this
paragraph:

| If you are fixing a bug that exists in the current release, be sure to
| commit it to the release branch; it will be merged to the master
| branch later by the gitmerge function.

but that's obviously not always true: depending on the release cycle,
only fixes for bugs that where introduced in the last release are
accepted, or even less.  And if a fix is not ok for the release branch
in a moment, should it go to master, or should it just wait until
later?

So - could we enhance the quoted paragraph?  As it is I find it
misleading.

How can I find out which fixes are acceptable for the release branch at
any moment without asking every time?  I'm already following emacs-dev
but still sometimes find difficult to answer this question.  I couldn't
exactly say what the current policy is for example.


Thanks,

Michael.

Re: CONTRIBUTE and where to commit bug fixes

[Michael Heerdegen]

Hello,

apparently I did not get an answer.  Can anyone guess the reason?
Answers still welcome.


Thanks,

Michael.

Re: CONTRIBUTE and where to commit bug fixes

[Stefan Monnier]

> but that's obviously not always true: depending on the release cycle,
> only fixes for bugs that where introduced in the last release are
> accepted, or even less.

Right.  Looks like you've followed this list long enough to know how it
works ;-)

> And if a fix is not ok for the release branch in a moment, should it
> go to master, or should it just wait until later?

Install it on master.  If the patch should apply to the next bug-fix
release, but can't be installed because we're in "deep freeze", we
should (but don't AFAIK) have some other branch for that patch, indeed.

> How can I find out which fixes are acceptable for the release branch at
> any moment without asking every time?

Follow the list with enough dedication to know when we're in deep freeze
and when we're not.

Maybe rather than document the way we work in more detail (which won't
really help solve the problem, obviously), we could change the way we
work to make it more clear:

- when we start the "new major release" process, we create a new branch
  (e.g. emacs-27).  Nothing new here.
- when we enter the "deep freeze" process, rather than announce it and
  hope people will know about it, we create yet another branch
  (e.g. emacs-27.1).

Then the rule can be documented more simply in the doc:
- master is for new features.
- emacs-NN is for any bug and doc fix.
- emacs-NN.MM only takes bug fixes for regressions and requires explicit
  agreement from the maintainers.

This also solves the problem of where to install non-regression bug
fixes when we're in deep freeze.


        Stefan

Re: CONTRIBUTE and where to commit bug fixes

[Karl Fogel]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>Follow the list with enough dedication to know when we're in deep freeze
>and when we're not.

:-)  Yeah -- I follow the list with light-to-medium dedication, and I usually can't tell whether we're in deep freeze.

(I realize your point above was sarcastic; I'm just agreeing with the sarcasm.)

>Maybe rather than document the way we work in more detail (which won't
>really help solve the problem, obviously), we could change the way we
>work to make it more clear:
>
>- when we start the "new major release" process, we create a new branch
>  (e.g. emacs-27).  Nothing new here.
>- when we enter the "deep freeze" process, rather than announce it and
>  hope people will know about it, we create yet another branch
>  (e.g. emacs-27.1).
>
>Then the rule can be documented more simply in the doc:
>- master is for new features.
>- emacs-NN is for any bug and doc fix.
>- emacs-NN.MM only takes bug fixes for regressions and requires explicit
>  agreement from the maintainers.
>
>This also solves the problem of where to install non-regression bug
>fixes when we're in deep freeze.

+1 -- nice solution all around.

Best regards,
-Karl

Re: CONTRIBUTE and where to commit bug fixes

[Van L]

> Then the rule can be documented more simply in the doc:
> - master is for new features.
> - emacs-NN is for any bug and doc fix.
> - emacs-NN.MM only takes bug fixes for regressions and requires explicit
>  agreement from the maintainers.

- emacs-NN.MM.OO is for 0-to-15-day style quick fixes?

Re: CONTRIBUTE and where to commit bug fixes

[Michael Heerdegen]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> Follow the list with enough dedication to know when we're in deep freeze
> and when we're not.

Ok, so now we are not in a deep freeze, which means I can install bug
fixes, even for bugs that were not introduced by the according release,
to the release branch (unless the bug is actually not a real bug but a
feature request or such).  Like "bug#32630: 26; [REGRESSION]
`dired-query' key help (`help-form-show')".  Correct?


Thanks,

Michael.

Re: CONTRIBUTE and where to commit bug fixes

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> "MH" == Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

MH> Ok, so now we are not in a deep freeze, which means I can install bug
MH> fixes, even for bugs that were not introduced by the according release, to
MH> the release branch (unless the bug is actually not a real bug but a
MH> feature request or such). Like "bug#32630: 26; [REGRESSION] `dired-query'
MH> key help (`help-form-show')". Correct?

This is my understanding.

-- 
John Wiegley                  GPG fingerprint = 4710 CF98 AF9B 327B B80F
http://newartisans.com                          60E1 46C4 BD1A 7AC1 4BA2

Re: CONTRIBUTE and where to commit bug fixes

[Noam Postavsky]

On Thu, 4 Oct 2018 at 12:12, Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> wrote:
> even for bugs that were not introduced by the according release,
> to the release branch (unless the bug is actually not a real bug but a
> feature request or such).  Like "bug#32630: 26; [REGRESSION]
> `dired-query' key help (`help-form-show')".

It sounds like that bug was introduced by the latest release though.

Re: CONTRIBUTE and where to commit bug fixes

[Michael Heerdegen]

Noam Postavsky <npostavs@gmail.com> writes:

> It sounds like that bug was introduced by the latest release though.

Yes, that's right.  But it seems that it isn't relevant, so I just
didn't check (I did now).


Michael.