From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Carsten Dominik Subject: IMPORTANT: The new development model for Org-mode. Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 18:01:08 +0100 Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v915) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JMo2m-0006Ti-Ub for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:26:44 -0500 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JMo2l-0006SK-8Q for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:26:44 -0500 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JMo2k-0006SD-Sa for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:26:42 -0500 Received: from ug-out-1314.google.com ([66.249.92.172]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1JMo2k-0003ff-Lr for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:26:42 -0500 Received: by ug-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id a2so490772ugf.48 for ; Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:26:41 -0800 (PST) List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: org-mode mailing list Dear Org-moders, the time has come to change the development model of org-mode. From now on, Org-mode will be maintained in a public git repository. There are a number of reasons for this change: - several people on the mailing list have asked for such a change, to make it easier to try out new things. - I would like to keep the momentum org-mode has, and I am realizing that I might not be able to keep it up by myself. - I want to make it easier for people to produce extensions that might not be part of the core, but will still be distributed with Org-mode, in a CONTRIB directory. In fact, I hope that much of the development starts out in this directory, as extensions. Maybe this will require more places where packages can hook into the code code - if yes, we will reate such hooks. Maybe this will force us to make Org-mode more modular, which might be a good direction to take. - GIT is very new for me and seem interesting, I would like to try it with a real, distributed project. And I am sure that I will need help from more experience people once problems show up. Below is the content of the README_GIT file in the repository, to set the stage and to propose some rules. Hope you'll stay with me on this, I am curious what might happen. - Carsten README_GIT ========== Table of Contents ================= 1 Main rules 2 The CONTRIB directory 1 Main rules ~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. The git repository is hosted publicly at repo.or.cs. Anyone can get a clone of the current repository state using the command git clone git://repo.or.cz/org-mode.git Having a clone is sufficient to start hacking and to produce patches that can easily and consistently be applied to the main repository. 2. People who are interested to participate in the Org-mode development can do so by sending patches to emacs-orgmode@gnu.org. 3. An interested developer can also request push access to the central repository by sending his/her user-info at repo.or.cz the maintainer of Org-mode. By requesting push access, you acknowledge that you have read and agreed with the following rules: - Org-mode is part of Emacs. Therefore we need to be very conscious about changes moving into the Org-mode core. These can originate only from people who have signed the appropriate papers with the free software foundation. The files to which this applies are: - all *.el files in the root directory of the repository - org.texi, orgcard.tex, and ChangeLog. - Before making any significant changes, please explain and discuss them on the mailing list emacs-orgmode@gnu.org. This does obviously not apply to people who are maintaining their own contributions to Org-mode. Please, just use the new mechanism to make sure all changes end up in the right place. - Creating and pushing a change to the Org-mode core requires you also to provide ChangeLog entries. Just press `C-x 4 a' in each function or variable you have modified and describe the change you made in the ChangeLog buffer/file. - Among other things, Org-mode is widely appreciated because if its simplicity, cleanness and consistency. We should try hard to preserve this and I would like to ask everyone to keep this in mind when developing changes. 2 The CONTRIB directory ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The git repository contains a CONTRIB directory. This directory is the playing field for any developer, also people who have not (yet) signed the papers with the FSF. You are free to add files to this directory, implementing extensions, new link types etc. Also non-Lisp extensions like scripts to process Org-mode files in different ways are welcome in this directory. You should provide documentation with your extensions, at least in the form of commentary in the file. Please discuss your extensions on emacs-orgmode@gnu.org. The CONTRIB directory will be part of the Org-mode distribution starting with version 6.0 (the first release after 5.20). When that happens, people who want to use extensions will have to make sure their search path (executable or Lisp) includes the relevant directories. After files have been tested in CONTRIB and found to be generally useful, we may decide to clarify copyright questions and then move the file into the Org-mode core. This means they will be moved up to the root directory and will also eventually be added to Emacs CVS tree. The final decision about this rests with the maintainer.