From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 20986 invoked by alias); 25 Dec 2007 18:58:07 -0000 Received: (qmail 20976 invoked by uid 22791); 25 Dec 2007 18:58:06 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from hosted07.westnet.com.au (HELO hosted07.westnet.com.au) (203.10.1.223) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Tue, 25 Dec 2007 18:57:58 +0000 Received: from hosted07.westnet.com.au (hosted07.westnet.com.au [127.0.0.1]) by hosted07.westnet.com.au (Postfix) with SMTP id 88FA233D6E7; Wed, 26 Dec 2007 03:57:55 +0900 (WST) Received: from [192.168.1.103] (dsl-124-150-103-65.vic.westnet.com.au [124.150.103.65]) by hosted07.westnet.com.au (Postfix) with ESMTP id 800A333D95A; Wed, 26 Dec 2007 03:57:48 +0900 (WST) Subject: Re: Rant about ChangeLog entries and commit messages From: Tim Josling Reply-To: tejgcc@westnet.com.au To: Alexandre Oliva Cc: Richard Kenner , dberlin@dberlin.org, bernds_cb1@t-online.de, ebotcazou@libertysurf.fr, gcc@gcc.gnu.org, sam@rfc1149.net, schwab@suse.de In-Reply-To: References: <2007-12-02-11-05-39+trackit+sam@rfc1149.net> <200712022136.57819.ebotcazou@libertysurf.fr> <4aca3dc20712021240k19f3eae5j66453276179c401a@mail.gmail.com> <200712022355.23871.ebotcazou@libertysurf.fr> <4aca3dc20712021621n39a036d2u21f471f231dfffe@mail.gmail.com> <10712031329.AA20246@vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 19:35:00 -0000 Message-Id: <1198609072.25084.14.camel@tim-gcc> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.10.1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-PMX-Branch: TNG-Outgoing X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact gcc-help@gcc.gnu.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: Sender: gcc-owner@gcc.gnu.org X-SW-Source: 2007-12/txt/msg00676.txt.bz2 On Sat, 2007-12-15 at 20:54 -0200, Alexandre Oliva wrote: > On Dec 3, 2007, kenner@vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) wrote: > > > In my view, ChangeLog is mostly "write-only" from a developer's > > perspective. It's a document that the GNU project requires us to > produce > > for > > ... a good example of compliance with the GPL: > > 5. Conveying Modified Source Versions. > > a) The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified > it, and giving a relevant date. > (Minor quibble) As copyright owner of GCC, the FSF is not bound by the conditions of the licence it grants in the same way as licencees are bound. So I don't think this provision in itself would mandate that those who have copyright assignments to the FSF record their changes. I don't hear anyone arguing that people should not record what they changes and when. The question is whether it is sufficient. I just started using git locally, and I keep thinking it would be really great to have something like "git blame" for gcc. The command "git blame" gives you a listing of who changed each line of the file and when, and also gives the commit id. From that all can be revealed. > > FWIW, I've used ChangeLogs to find problems a number of times in my 14 > years of work in GCC, and I find them very useful. When I need more > details, web-searching for the author of the patch and some relevant > keywords in the ChangeLog will often point at the relevant e-mail, so > burdening people with adding a direct URL seems pointless to me. It's > pessimizing the common case for a small optimization in far less > common cases. > This may possibly work when the mailing list entries exist and are accessible. However they are only available AFAIK from 1998. GCC has been going for 2-3 times as long as that. And there is at least one significant gap: February 2004 up to and including this message http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2004-02/msg02288.html. In my experience, when documentation is not stored with the source code, it often gets lost. When a person is offline the mailing list htmls are not available. I have an idea to resolve this that I am working on... more in due course if it comes to anything. Tim Josling