Re: Your commit 7409a79

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Paul Eggert writes:

 > When a commit merely renames files, wouldn't it be better for the
 > subject line to explain the underlying reason for the change?

If the rename is out of the blue, yes.  But when does that happen?
Almost always renames happen in the context of other work and multiple
commits (some "pure renames" and some content changes) makes sense.

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:

    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. ;-)

Regards,