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

[Gary V. Vaughan]

Hi Karl,

On 10 Nov 2011, at 06:45, Karl Berry wrote:
> Sorry, I didn't know I was in the loop here.  Didn't see my name at the
> bottom of a 200-line msg with lots of quotes.

No worries, that's what I figured :)

> Having now read it, I am not sure what the question is.  Maybe it's
> this: ChangeLog's of FSF-copyrighted packages must keep the "(tiny
> change)" convention as far as I have ever heard.  rms has always very
> strongly resisted the idea of putting necessary information into VC
> metadata and nowhere else.
> 
> On the other hand, any method for creating the "(tiny change)" is
> acceptable.
> 
> Does that help?  Probably not.  Let me know ...

That's most of it, yes.  Thank you!

Jim, I believe, wants to know whether:

>> establishing such a convention.
>> and going to this trouble is worthwhile, since the size of the
>> change is already known, via the associated patch.

I.e. Can we just take the difference between lines added and lines
removed per patch, and automatically add the (tiny change) annotation
to the generated ChangeLog if that turns out to be 5 or less?  I
tend to think not, as some judgement is always required: refilling
a long function by adding 100 newlines is a couple of minutes of
effort and certainly a qualifies as a tiny change - adding a complex
pivotal 2 line macro and tweaking an existing macro that uses it in
another line might represent days of research development and testing
and is certainly not a tiny change.  And then there is the huge grey
are between.

I'm also interested in whether you have an opinion on my preference
for 'Copyright-paperwork-required' as the VCS tag, rather than say,
'Tiny-change'?  Considering that most of the patches I receive that
are in need of a ChangeLog (tiny change) annotation come from non-
GNU maintainers, on a good day we're often ask why their patch is
marked that way... so I'm  forever explaining that we're not belittling
their contribution, but merely noting that we don't require them to
file a copyright disclaimer.  On a bad day, we may have inadvertently
discouraged someone from submitting further improvements to the code
if they feel insulted, but don't ask why their patch is "tiny".

Obviously the convention for ChangeLog is set in stone, but I'd like
to take the opportunity here to choose a less confusing tag to put
in git (which will likely be what the patch submitter sees in the
commit emails their patch generates, or by running git diff).

>>> Even if somewhere you've felt "insistence" on this issue,
>>> let's just write "request":
> 
> "(tiny change)" is more than a request.

That is my impression too.

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