patches policy

[Patrik Stridvall]

> There is something concerning submitting patches that bothers me
> to no end: inlining vs. attaching them.

Yes!!! Finally. Another flamewar. :-)

I will mainly comment how I submit my patches.
I don't personally care that much what others do.

However if Alexandre finds some way more convenient
I can certain change...

> I don't know about others, but for me 99/1 rule applies: I at least
> skim over 99% of the patches inlines in the message, whereas
> I bother to read at most 1% of the ones attached/tar.gzed/ziped.
> Maybe I'm an extreme case, but there's got to be more to it than
> my personal quirks.
> 
> If a patch is sent to wine-patches, it's sent there for peer review.
> If you don't want the review, send it to Alexandre directly, even
> though I suggest this is avoided as much as possible. However,
> it you do send it to wine-patches, please, *please* inline it!
> 
> What about a nice patch submission policy:
>   -- unified diff only (required)

Agreed (if the file already exists).

>   -- have a  decent subject (recommended)

Agreed.

>   -- a long description (optional, if the change warrants it)

Agreed.

>   -- a meaningful ChangeLog entry (required)

Agreed.

>   -- new files, if any, included in patch, diffed against 
> /dev/null (required)

I currently use .tar files since it handles the case that
Uwe was talking about that is new directories.

But then, I use a script to generate my patches, so I can
make the normal case (no new directory) as a diff against
/dev/null.

>   -- patch inlined at the end of the message (required)

If it is inlined at all it should certainly be at the end, agreed.

>   -- one changeset per message

What about dependent changesets? 
Or changeset that are otherwise logically dependent
(even if not syntactically or semantically)?

I guess they could be perhaps is multiple messages like:

Subject: Fix various bugs (part 1 of 3)
Subject: Fix various bugs (part 2 of 3)
Subject: Fix various bugs (part 3 of 3)

I currently mail all my patches from Windows (Outlook)
just out of habit I guess since it is where I send my
other mail so that would require manual work.

However I guess I could mail them directly from my Linux box
using another script...