Re: Your commit 7409a79

[Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org>
>> Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 11:28:48 +0900
>> Cc: Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
>> 
>> I would do the other work that the rename is intended to support on a
>> branch, do the rename, and then a merge commit with a commit message
>> like
>> 
>>     Clarify CONTRIBUTE and make it prominently visible.
>> 
>>     Step one in a revolutionary program to attract more contributors
>>     to Emacs.
>> 
>>     - Move from etc/ to top level for visibility in ls and git-browser.
>>     - Specify format of commit log summaries.
>>     - etc, etc
>> 
>> Then the rename commit can be trivial with a simple statement of fact:
>
> Exactly my thoughts.
>
>>     Rename etc/CONTRIBUTE to ./CONTRIBUTE.
>> 
>> Of course this style of committing and logs would be an insuperable
>> barrier to contribution if it were made policy. ;-)
>
> If people object to having instructions in CONTRIBUTE that might be
> not 100% necessary, I wonder if we can put recommendations in
> CONTRIBUTE without making it a policy that is enforced.  Something
> like "we recommend ...".

We can use "shall" or "must" for requirements, "should" for
recommendations. That's standard NASA practice.

That is _not_ the language used in the Gnu coding standards; that uses
"should" and "please" and other random words. It's not at all clear how
that relates to required/recommended.

-- 
-- Stephe