wiki:DevWikiComitGuidelines

Version 79 (modified by robe, 3 years ago) ( diff )

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RFC-5: PostGIS Core Contributor Guidelines

Version: 2.0
Author: Regina Obe <lr at pcorp dot us>
Last Edited: 2022/02/19
Status: Draft

Changes to this file

This RFC should be only changed by PostGIS PSC members. All PSC members must agree to the terms of the changes before the change is considered final except in the case of wording changes and formatting that do not alter the terms of the guidelines.

Purpose

To formalize source tree access, and specify some guidelines for primary source committers and patch submitters.

Election to Core Contributors Group

Permission for write source tree access shall be provided to contributors only if accepted by the PostGIS Project Steering Committee. A proposal should be written to the PSC for new contributors and voted on normally. It is not necessary to write an RFC document for these votes, a proposal to postgis-dev is sufficient. After approval, the approved contributor shall be given write access to the PostGIS source repo and also added to the documentation under the section ​Core Contributors Present

Removal of write access should be handled by the same process.

The contributor should have demonstrated commitment to PostGIS and knowledge of the PostGIS source code and processes to the committee's satisfaction, usually by reporting bugs, submitting patches, and/or actively participating in the PostGIS mailing list(s).

The contributor should also be prepared to support any new feature or changes in future releases that the contributor commits to the PostGIS source tree, or to find someone to which to delegate responsibility to should the contributor stop being available to support the portions of code the contributor is responsible for.

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

New core contributors are responsible for having read, and understood this document.

Code and Documentation Conventions

  • C code should follow our designated ​Style Guidelines to the best of your abilities
  • To accomplish Guidelines standards, we have implemented the use of ​editorconfig. Our repo as of version 2.4 now contains a .editorconfig file which editors configured with editorconfig support abide by.
  • We ask all developers to work with an editor that has editorconfig support. Many editors have it or have it as plugins.
  • All source code in GIT should be in Unix text format as opposed to DOS text mode with possible exception of .bat files.
  • Each new/changed function should be documented in the official docs following our Documentation Guidelines

Repo Administrator

One member of the Project Steering Committee will be designated as the Repo Administrator. That person will be responsible for giving write access to folks, updating the CREDITS, and other repo related management.

Paul Ramsey is currently designated as the Repo Administrator.

Commit and Bug, Feature Tracking Practices

The following are considered good source commit and tracking practices for the PostGIS project.

  1. Use meaningful descriptions for commit log entries.
  2. Add a bug reference like "#1232" at the beginning or end of commit log entries when committing changes related to a ticket in Trac. The '#' character enables Trac to create a hyperlink from the changeset to the mentioned ticket. For small changes where there is no ticket and there is a pull request or patch, reference to these e.g. github/gitlab/gitea pull request link is sufficient
  3. If you are given a patch or pull request from a community person, note their name in both the commit log entry and NEWS file.
  4. To close a ticket or pull request you can add to your commit log Closes #[xyz] where xyx is the trac ticket, or Closes [link to pull request]. Our trac system has a hook to automatically close these on trac and our git mirrors.
  5. Similarly adding References #[xyz] or References [link to pull request] will automatically put the commit log notes on the trac ticket/git pull request. If you forget to add the notes to the commit log, edit the trac ticket/git pull request and put the notes in - After committing changes related to a ticket in Trac, write the tree and revision in which it was fixed in the ticket description. Such as "Fixed in master ..git hash and in branches/3.0 <githas>". The 'r' character enables Trac to create a hyperlink from the ticket to the changeset.
  6. When new enhancements are added or breaking changes are made and completed the related ticket should be added to the NEWS file.
  7. Changes should not be committed in stable branches without a corresponding bug id in NEWS. Any change worth pushing into the stable version is worth a bug entry. Bug fixes pushed to stable branches do not need to be noted in the development branch (except during alpha/beta/rc releases) because it is assumed the development branch includes all bug fixes of prior stable versions.
  8. Never commit new features to a stable branch without permission of the PSC or release manager. Normally only fixes should go into stable branches.
  9. New features go in the master branch.
  10. Only bug fixes should be committed to the code during pre-release code freeze, without permission from the PSC or release manager.
  11. Significant changes to the development version, in particular breaking backward-compatibility, should be discussed on the postgis-dev list before you make them, and larger changes will require an RFC approved by the PSC.
  12. As a general rule, do not create new branches. Feature branches should be created in your own personal repo of choice. Release managers are assumed to have permission to create a branch.
  13. 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, FreeBSD, Mac, and Windows), either by testing on those platforms directly, running CI tests, 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 and related documentations should be kept up to date.
  14. After each commit, verify that all the build bots are happy on this page - ​https://trac.osgeo.org/postgis/ and if their unhappiness is caused by your commit, fix the issue before making any other changes.

Committer Tracking

A list of all core contributors is listed in the manual under the section "Core Contributors Present" in file doc/introduction.xml. This will be the responsibility of the PSC to keep up to date:

  • Full name: the users actual name.
  • A brief indication of areas of responsibility.

This will be the responsibility of the documentation lead (currently Regina Obe) to manage. All stable non-EOL'd documents should list this information for core contributors.

Relationship with other Projects

Some parts of the PostGIS code base are dependent on other upsteam projects or other projects rely heavily on functionality in PostGIS. Changes in those areas should go first into those upstream projects and then applied to PostGIS. In event of major changes to PostGIS, said projects should be regression tested (before a PostGIS release) to ensure the latest version still works with the latest RTM version of PostGIS.

Currently the list of those areas is :

GIS FOSS suites that may be impacted by PostGIS major release:

Core contributors are the front line gatekeepers to keep the code base clear of improperly contributed code. It is important to the PostGIS 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 original GPL license, and that the person providing the code has the right to contribute the code. The core contributor that accepts and committs the code should verify the understanding of the contributor 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 GPL 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.

Core contributors 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.
  • 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 OSGeo 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.
  • Code with licenses requiring credit, or disclosure to users should be added to LICENSE.TXT.
  • 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 is proper to contribute to the code base, please seek more information from the project steering committee, or the foundation legal counsel.
  • New contributors and company contributors should be added to the credits in doc/introduction.xml of the latest release of the PostGIS manual.
  • It is the responsibility of the document lead to ensure when new enhancements are added or breaking changes are made, these are noted in the relevant branch/NEWS as soon as conveniently possible. The note should include the trac # (unless a major feature with many tickets) and contributors to the feature/change.

Bootstrapping

The following existing committers will be considered authorized PostGIS committers as long as they each review the committer guidelines, and agree to adhere to them. The administrator will be responsible for checking with each person. Current committers are listed in alphabetical order with (P) to denote current Project Steering Committee members TODO this might have been the boot strap but not current developer list not sure we even need a bootstrap here

  • Jorge Arévalo
  • Nicklas Avén
  • Mark Cave-Ayland (P)
  • Olivier Courtin
  • Chris Hodgson (P)
  • Mark Leslie
  • Mateusz Loskot
  • Kevin Neufeld
  • Regina Obe (P) Documentation Lead
  • Bborie Park (P)
  • Pierre Racine
  • Paul Ramsey (P) SVN Administrator
  • Sandro Santilli (P)
  • David Zwarg

Note: See TracWiki for help on using the wiki.