3 #+TITLE: Org maintainer tasks
7 This document describes the tasks the Org-mode maintainer has to do
8 and how they are performed.
12 The git repository has two branches:
14 - master :: for current development.
16 - maint :: for bug fixes against latest major or minor release.
18 Bug fixes always go on =maint= then are merged on =master=.
20 New features always go on =master=.
26 The release number for main releases look like this: =7.13=
28 Main releases are made whenever Org is in a state where the feature
29 set is consistent and we feel that the features that are implemented
30 is something we want to support in the future.
32 A major release turns the current state of the master branch into a
35 When doing a /major release/, make sure all changes from the maint
36 branch are merged into the the master branch, then merge the master
37 branch back into maint to synchronize the two.
41 The release number for minor releases look like this: =7.13.1=
43 Minor releases are small amends to main releases. Usually they fix
44 critical bugs discovered in a main release. Minor bugs are usually
45 not fixed -- they will be adressed in the next main release.
47 Only the fix to the bug is bundled into a release, without the main
48 development work going on in the master branch. Since the bug fix
49 will also be needed in the master branch, usually the fix is made in
50 maint then merged in master.
52 ** Tagging the release
54 When doing a major and a minor release, after all necessary merging is
55 done, tag the _maint_ branch for the release with:
57 git tag -a release_7.9.1 -m "Adding release tag"
63 We also encourage you to sign release tags like this:
65 git tag -s release_7.9.1 -m "Adding release tag"
67 ** Uploading the release files from the orgmode.org server
69 Log on the orgmode.org server as the emacs user and cd to
77 to create the .tar.gz and .zip files, the documentation, and to
78 upload everything at the right place.
80 * Available Org's builds on the server
82 There are two cron tasks on the server: one that builds the ELPA
83 packages and one that builds org-latest.tar.gz and org-latest.zip.
85 ELPA packages are built from the *maint* branch. One ELPA package
86 contains Org's core, another one called "org-plus-contrib" contains
87 Org and contributed libraries.
89 org-latest* snapshots are built from the *master* branch.
91 * Synchronization with Emacs
93 ** Updating etc/ORG-NEWS
95 Latest changes in Emacs are described in Emacs =etc/NEWS=, and latest
96 changes in major Emacs packages are described in =etc/ORG-NEWS=.
98 If a major release is meant to be merged with the Emacs trunk (as it
99 always should), you need to update Org's =etc/ORG-NEWS= file so that
100 you can merge it with that of Emacs. There is one top-level section
101 for each release that is merged with Emacs.
103 ** Merging with Emacs trunk branch
105 This is still a significant headache. Some hand work is needed here.
107 Emacs uses bzr. A useful introduction to bzr for Emacs developers can
108 be found [[http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/BzrForEmacsDevs][here]]. While I see all the advantages this would have, I
109 cannot bring myself to switch away from git for my day-to-day work,
110 because I know git so well, and because git seems to me as being much
111 more powerful, conceptionally simple (once you have [[http://newartisans.com/2008/04/git-from-the-bottom-up/][bent your head
112 around it]]), and so much faster.
114 So the way I have been doing things with Emacs is this:
116 1. I do not update the version in Emacs too often. Just once every
117 few months - this is frequently enough for the Emacs release cycle.
118 Care must be taken to get in a *new and stable* version shortly
119 before Emacs goes into feature freeze and pretest, because that
120 version is going to be in the wild for a long time.
122 2. I watch the Emacs diffs for changes made by the maintainers of
123 Emacs in the org-mode files in Emacs. Any changes that come up
124 there, I merge into the development version of Org-mode.
125 Occasionally I do not do this, if I do not agree with a change.
126 The changes go into Org /without/ a ChangeLog-like entry in the
127 commit message. The reason for this is that we will later generate
128 a ChangeLog file from our commit messages, and I do not want double
129 ChangeLog entries in the Emacs ChangeLog file.
131 3. When I have made a release (usually I wait for the minor releases
132 to stabilize), I *copy* org files into the Emacs repository. Yes,
133 I do not merge, I copy. This has been the source of some problems
134 in the past - Emacs developers are not happy when I accidentally
135 overwrite changes they made. But I have not had the patience to
136 work out a better mechanism, and I really dislike the idea that the
137 version in Emacs starts diverging from my own.
139 Careful: Copy /org.texi/ and /orgcard.tex/ into the right places,
140 and also copy the lisp files with *one exception*: Do *not* copy
141 /org-loaddefs.el/, Emacs generates its own autoloads.
143 4. Generate the ChangeLog entries
145 For this, I do in the org-mode git repository
147 : mk/make_emacs_changelog release_7.02.05..release_7.03.02
149 This will spit out ChangeLog entries (for the given commit range)
150 that need to go into the ChangeLog files in Emacs. Org-mode
151 contributes to 3 different ChangeLog files in Emacs:
153 : lisp/org/ChangeLog (for lisp changes)
154 : doc/misc/ChangeLog (for org.texi changes)
155 : etc/ChangeLog (for refcard changes)
157 When you run the =make_emacs_changelog= program, you will be
158 prompted for a date in ISO format YYYY-MM-DD, this date will be
159 used in the ChangeLog entries - Emacs developers want these dates
160 to be the time when the change has been installed into Emacs, not
161 the time when we made the change in our own repository. So all the
162 ChangeLog entries will get the same date. You will also be
163 prompted for the kind of ChangeLog you want to make, possible
164 answers are =lisp=, =texi=, and =card=. The program will then
165 select the correct entries for the specified ChangeLog file. If
166 you don't like being prompted, you can give the date and type as
167 second and third command line arguments to =make_emacs_changelog=,
170 : mk/make_emacs_changelog release_7.02.05..release_7.03.02 2010-12-11 lisp
172 These entries need to be added to the ChangeLog files in Emacs.
173 You should, in the ChangeLog file, select the inserted region of
174 new entries and do =M-x fill-region=, so that the entries are
175 formatted correctly. I then do look through the entries quickly to
176 make sure they are formatted properly, that the email addresses
179 5. Commit the changes into the bzr repository and you are done. Emacs
180 developers often look throught the commit and make minor changes -
181 these need to be merged back into our own repo.
183 * Updating the list of hooks/commands/options on Worg
185 Load the =mk/eldo.el= file then =M-x eldo-make-doc RET=.
187 This will produce an org file with the documentation.
189 Import this file into =worg/doc.org=, leaving the header untouched
190 (except for the release number).
192 Then commit and push the change on the =worg.git= repository.
194 * Copyright assignments
196 The maintainer needs to keep track of copyright assignments.
197 Even better, find a volunteer to do this.
199 The assignment form is included in the repository as a file that
200 you can send to contributors: =request-assign-future.txt=
202 The list of all contributors from who we have the papers is kept on
203 Worg at http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contribute.html, so that
204 committers can check if a patch can go into the core.
206 The assignment process does not allways go smoothly, and it has
207 happened several times that it gets stuck or forgotten at the FSF.
208 The contact at the FSF for this is: mailto:copyright-clerk@fsf.org
210 Emails from the paper submitter have been ignored in the past, but
211 an email from me (Carsten) as the maintainer of Org mode has usually
212 fixed such cases within a few days.