4 #+title: Maintainer tasks
7 This document describes the tasks the Org-mode maintainer has to do
8 and how they are performed.
10 * Working with patchwork
12 John Wiegley is running a patchwork server that looks at the
13 emacs-orgmode mailing list and extracts patches. The maintainer and
14 his helpers should work through such patches, give feedback on them
15 and apply the ones which are good and done.
17 I have found that the best workflow for this is using the pw script by
18 Nate Case, with the modifications for Org-mode made by John Wiegley
19 and Carsten Dominik. The correct version of this script that should
20 be used with Org mode is distributed in the UTILITIES directory of the
21 Org mode distribution. Here is the basic workflow for this.
23 ** Access to the patchwork server
25 If you want to work on patchwork patches, you need write access at the
26 patchwork server. You need to contact John Wiegley to get this
29 There is a web interface to look at the patches and to change the
30 status of patches. This interface is self-explanatory. There is also
31 a command line script which can be very convenient to use.
35 To start testing a patch, first assign it to yourself
37 : pw update -s "Under Review" -d DELEGATE-NAME NNN
39 where =NNN= is a patch number and =DELEGATE-NAME= is your user name on
42 The get the patch into a branch:
46 This will create a local topic branch in your git repository with the
47 name =t/patchNNN=. You will also be switched to the branch so that
48 you can immediately start testing it. Quite often small amends need
49 to be made, or documentation has to be added. Also, many contributors
50 do not yet provide the proper ChangeLog-like entries in the commit
51 message for the patch. As a maintainer, you have two options here.
52 Either ask the contributor to make the changes and resubmit the patch,
53 or fix it yourself. In principle, asking to contributor to change the
54 patch until it is complete is the best route, because it will educate
55 the contributor and minimize the work for the maintainer. However,
56 sometimes it can be less hassle to fix things directly and commit the
57 changes to the same branch =t/patchNNN=.
59 If you ask the contributor to make the changes, the patch should be
60 marked on the patchwork server as "changes requested".
62 : pw update -s "Changed Requested" -m "What to change" NNN
64 This will sand an email to the contributor and the mailing list with a
65 request for changes. The =-m= message should not be more than one
66 sentence and describe the requested changes. If you need to explain
67 in more detail, write a separate email to the contributor.
69 When a new version of the patch arrives, you mark the old one as
72 : pw update -s "Superseded" NNN
74 and start working at the new one.
76 ** Merging a final patch
78 Once the patch has been iterated and is final (including the
79 ChangeLog-like entries in the commit message), it should be merged.
80 The assumption here is that the final version of the patch is given by
81 the HEAD state in the branch =t/patchNNN=. To merge, do this:
83 : pw merge -m "maintainer comment" NNN
85 This will merge than patch into master, switch back to master and send
86 an email to both contributor and mailing list stating that this change
87 has been accepted, along with the comment given in the =-m= message.
89 At some point you might then want to remove the topic branch
97 The release number for main releases look like this: =7.13=
99 Main releases are made whenever Org is in a state where the feature
100 set is consistent and we feel that the features that are implemented
101 is something we want to support in the future.
103 A major release turns the current state of the master branch into a
104 release. The release process is a single make command:
106 : make release TAG=7.13
108 Before issuing this command, you should make sure that everything
109 during the process will work right, you can do so my running
111 : make testrelease TAG=7.13
113 When this fails, make sure to clean up. =git reset --hard= if
114 necessary, and check if there are unwanted files, directories, or
115 branches left over from the testing.
119 The release number for minor releases look like this: =7.13.01=
121 Minor releases are small amends to main releases. Usually they fix
122 bugs discovered in a main release. Only the fix to the bug is
123 bundled into a release, without the main development work going on in
124 the master branch. Since the big fix will also be needed in the
125 master branch, usually the fix is made in master and then
126 cherry-picked into maint. When this is done, a release is made from
127 maint with this command:
129 : make fixrelease TAG=7.13.01
133 While working on master between releases, I use something like
134 7.02trans as the version string. To set this version string in all
137 : UTILITIES/set_version 7.02trans
139 and commit the result. Note that the above command does not change
140 the version string in the file from which Org's homepage is
141 generated. To change that as well, you would use a =--all= flag. TO
142 change only this file, use =--only=.
144 * Synchonization with Emacs
146 This is still a significant headache. Some hand work is needed here.
148 Emacs uses bzr, and while I see all the advantages thiswould have, I
149 cannot bring myself to switch away from git for my day-to-day work.
150 So the way I have been doing things with Emacs is this:
152 1. I do not update the version in Emacs too often. Just once every
153 few month - this is frequently enough for the Emacs release cycle.
155 2. I watch the Emacs diffs for changes made by the maintainers of
156 Emacs in the org-mode files in Emacs. Any changes that come up
157 there, I merge into the development version of Org-mode.
158 Occasionally I do not do this, if I do not agree with a change.
159 The changes go into Org /without/ a ChangeLog-like entry in the
160 commit message. The reason for this is that we will later generate
161 a ChangeLog file from our commit messages, and I do not want double
162 ChangeLog entries in the Emacs ChangeLog file.
164 3. When I have made a release (usually I wait for the minor releases
165 to stabilize), I *copy* org files into the Emacs repository. Yes,
166 I do not merge, I copy. This has been the source of some problems
167 in the past - but I have not had the patience to work out a better
168 mechanism, and I really dislike the idea that the version in Emacs
169 starts diverging from my own.
171 Careful: Copy /org.texi/ and /orgcard.tex/ into the right places,
172 and also copy the lisp files with *two exceptions*: Do *not* copy
173 /org-colview-xemacs.el/ and /org-install.el/. The former does not
174 belong in Emacs. And the latter would actually be harmful because
175 Emacs generates its own autoloads. The Emacs distribution contains
176 an empty org-install.el, so that users can have =(require
177 'org-install)= in .emacs with no ill effects. So if you were to
178 copy org-install.el, you would overwrite that empty placeholder
181 4. Generate the ChangeLog entries
183 For this, I do in the org-mode git repository
185 : UTILITIES/make_emacs_changelog release_7.02.05..release_7.03.02
187 This will spit out ChangeLog entries (for the given commit range)
188 that need to go into the ChangeLog files in Emacs. Org-mode
189 contributes to 3 different ChangeLog files in Emacs:
191 : lisp/org/ChangeLog (for lisp changes)
192 : doc/misc/ChangeLog (for org.texi changes)
193 : etc/ChangeLog (for refcard changes)
195 When you run the =make_emacs_changelog= program, you will be
196 prompted for a date in ISO format YYYY-MM-DD, this date will be
197 used in the ChangeLog entries - Emacs wants these dates to be the
198 time when the change has been installed into Emacs, not the time
199 when we made the change in our own repository. You will also be
200 prompted for the kind of ChangeLog you want to make, possible
201 answers are =lisp=, =texi=, and =card=. The program will then
202 select the correct entries for the specified ChangeLog file. If
203 you don't like being prompted, you can give the date and type as
204 second and third command line arguments to =make_emacs_changelog=.
206 These entries need to be added to the ChangeLog files in Emacs.
207 You should, in the ChangeLog file, select the inserted region of
208 new entries and do =M-x fill-region=, so that the entries are
209 formatted correctly. I then do look through the entries quickly to
210 make sure they are formatted properly, that the email addresses
213 5. Commit the changes into the bzr repository and you are done. Emacs
214 developers often look throught the commit and make minor changes -
215 these need to be merged back into our own repo.