MS RFC 7.1: MapServer SVN Commit Management

Date:2008/07/02 Author:Frank Warmerdam and Tom Kralidis Contact:warmerdam at pobox.com and tomkralidis at hotmail.com Last Edited:$Date$ Status:Adopted Id:$Id$

Note

This RFC obsoletes MS RFC 7: MapServer CVS Commit Management.

Purpose

To formalize SVN commit access, and specify some guidelines for SVN committers.

Election to SVN Commit Access

Permission for SVN commit access shall be provided to new developers only if accepted by the MapServer Project Steering Committee. A proposal should be written to the PSC for new committers and voted on normally. It is not necessary to write an RFC document for these votes ... email to mapserver-dev is sufficient.

Removal of SVN commit access should be handled by the same process.

The new committer should have demonstrated commitment to MapServer and knowledge of the MapServer source code and processes to the committee’s satisfaction, usually by reporting tickets, submitting patches, and/or actively participating in the various MapServer forums.

The new committer should also be prepared to support any new feature or changes that he/she commits to the MapServer source tree in future releases, or to find someone to which to delegate responsibility for them if he/she stops being available to support the portions of code that he/she is responsible for.

All committers should also be a member of mapserver-dev mailing list so they can stay informed on policies, technical developments and release preparation.

Committer Tracking

A list of all project committers will be kept in the main mapserver directory (called COMMITTERS) listing for each SVN committer:

• Userid: the id that will appear in the SVN logs for this person.
• Full name: the users actual name.
• Email address: A current email address at which the committer can be reached. It may be altered in normal ways to make it harder to auto-harvest.
• A brief indication of areas of responsibility.

SVN Administrator

One member of the Project Steering Committee will be designed the SVN Administrator. That person will be responsible for giving SVN commit access to folks, updating the COMMITTERS file, and other SVN related management. Initially Steve Lime will be the SVN Administrator.

SVN Commit Practices

The following are considered good SVN commit practices for the MapServer project.

• Use meaningful descriptions for SVN commit log entries.
• Add a ticket reference like “(#1232)” at the end of SVN commit log entries when committing changes related to a ticket in Trac.
• Include changeset revision numbers like “r7622” in tickets when discussing relevant changes to the codebase.
• Include an entry in the HISTORY file for any significant change or fix committed in the main MapServer source tree. Make sure it is placed under the correct version heading and include ticket numbers in these messages too.
• Changes should not be committed in stable branches without a corresponding ticket and HISTORY entry. Any change worth pushing into the stable version is worth a Trac ticket and good HISTORY notations.
• Never commit new features to a stable branch: only critical fixes. New features can only go in the main development trunk.
• Only ticket defects should be committed to the code during pre-release code freeze.
• Significant changes to the main development version should be discussed on the -dev list before you make them, and larger changes will require an RFC approved by the PSC.
• Do not create new branches without the approval of the PSC. Release managers are assumed to have permission to create a branch.
• All source code in SVN should be in Unix text format as opposed to DOS text mode.
• When committing new features or significant changes to existing source code, the committer should take reasonable measures to insure that the source code continues to build and work on the most commonly supported platforms (currently Linux and Windows), either by testing on those platforms directly, or by getting help from other developers working on those platforms. If new files or library dependencies are added, then the configure.in, Makefile.in, Makefile.vc and related documentations should be kept up to date.

Legal

Commiters are the front line gatekeepers to keep the code base clear of improperly contributed code. It is important to the MapServer users, developers and the OSGeo foundation to avoid contributing any code to the project without it being clearly licensed under the project license.

Generally speaking the key issues are that those providing code to be included in the repository understand that the code will be released under the MapServer License, and that the person providing the code has the right to contribute the code. For the committer themselves understanding about the license is hopefully clear. For other contributors, the committer should verify the understanding unless the committer is very comfortable that the contributor understands the license (for instance frequent contributors).

If the contribution was developed on behalf of an employer (on work time, as part of a work project, etc) then it is important that an appropriate representative of the employer understand that the code will be contributed under the MapServer License. The arrangement should be cleared with an authorized supervisor/manager, etc.

The code should be developed by the contributor, or the code should be from a source which can be rightfully contributed such as from the public domain, or from an open source project under a compatible license.

All unusual situations need to be discussed and/or documented.

Committers should adhere to the following guidelines, and may be personally legally liable for improperly contributing code to the source repository:

• Make sure the contributor (and possibly employer) is aware of the contribution terms.
• Code coming from a source other than the contributor (such as adapted from another project) should be clearly marked as to the original source, copyright holders, license terms and so forth. This information can be in the file headers, but should also be added to the project licensing file if not exactly matching normal project licensing (mapserver/LICENSE.txt).
• Existing copyright headers and license text should never be stripped from a file. If a copyright holder wishes to give up copyright they must do so in writing to the foundation before copyright messages are removed. If license terms are changed it has to be by agreement (written in email is ok) of the copyright holders.
• When substantial contributions are added to a file (such as substantial patches) the author/contributor should be added to the list of copyright holders for the file.
• If there is uncertainty about whether a change it proper to contribute to the code base, please seek more information from the project steering committee, or the foundation legal counsel.

Voting History

Adopted on 2008/07/02 with +1 from PericlesN, DanielM, TamasS, JeffM, UmbertoN, SteveW, AssefaY, FrankW, TomK