source: trunk/doc/procedures @ 13857

This file contains a description of the process developers should go
through to get changes into the source tree.  Although it discusses
the use of CVS, it is not a CVS tutorial; read the CVS info pages
(available in M-x info in emacs on Athena) for a general introduction
to CVS.  Areas covered in this file are:

        Checking out a working directory
        Preparing changes for review
        Reviewing changes
        Early checkins
        Third-party sources

You should use cvs from the gnu locker with the source repository.
People without write access to the repository can use "cvs -u" (a
local modification to CVS) to access the repository without making
read locks.  If you do not have write access to the repository and you
want to submit a change, follow the guidelines below up and including
sending mail to source-reviewers, and note in your mail that your
reviewer should check in the change because you cannot do so.

Checking out a working directory
--------------------------------

Set CVSROOT to "/afs/dev.mit.edu/source/repository" before trying to
check out a working directory.

The entire source tree is very large.  You can check it out with "cvs
co -P all", but in almost all cases this would be a big waste of space.
Simply check out a subdirectory of the source tree with a command like
"cvs co -P athena/bin/olc".

CVS knows nothing about AFS permissions, so all directories created
will have the same permissions as their parent.  It is generally
safest to do your checkouts in a private area of the filesystem.

You should use the -P option for checkout because the source tree
contains some historical directories (now empty) which will conflict
with builds.

Preparing changes for review
----------------------------

Changes to the doc hierarchy do not typically need to be reviewed;
notification is typically good enough, since no software will break as
a result of changes to the source tree documentation.

For changes to other parts of the tree, you should perform the
following steps while preparing your changes for review:

        1. Do a "cvs update" in your working directory to merge in
           changes other people may have made.  (You can do "cvs -n
           update" if you want to see what needs to be merged in
           without actually doing the merge.)

        2. Be sure to test your changes.

        3. Make sure your changes are made in reviewable chunks to the
           greatest extent possible.  If you have many changes to make
           of several different types, prepare one patch for each type
           of change; in particular, if you have some cosmetic changes
           to make and some functional fixes to make, submit them as
           two different patches if they add up to a significant
           number of changes.  This requirement creates more work for
           the submitter, but it greatly increases the effectiveness
           of the review process.

        4. Use "cvs diff -c -N" piped to a file to prepare your
           changes.  (Do not cut and paste diffs from an xterm; your
           tabs will be converted to spaces.)  If your change
           involves lots of reindentation, you may want to also use
           the "-w" flag to diff.

        5. Look over your diffs.  Make sure you haven't been sloppy
           about spacing, punctuation, and naming, and that you have
           tried to conform to the guidelines in the file "standards"
           in this directory 

        6. Send your diffs, along with a clear description of the
           change you are making, to source-reviewers@mit.edu.  If the
           diffs are very large (more than 50K), put the changes
           somewhere world-readable (unless the source code in
           question is restricted) and mail a pointer.

        7. If you do not have write access to the source tree and
           submitted your diff using the -w flag, submit it again
           without the -w flag so that the full patch can be checked
           in by someone with write access.

Ideally, at least one person will respond to your mail within a day or
two, either expressing concerns or signing onto your change.  You
should wait at least one day for people to voice their objections.  If
you receive objections or requests for further information from staff
members, you must either satisfy those concerns or resolve the issue
with the release team before committing your change.  If after one
day, you have received no objections and someone has signed onto your
change, you may commit your change.  You may also commit your change
if no one objects within five days, even if no one has signed onto it.

When you check in your change, be sure to include a clear log message.
Explain why you are making the change you are making if it's not
obvious.

Reviewing changes
-----------------

Sometimes you can review a change by looking at the patch.  Other
times you will want to check out a tree and apply the patch, with
"patch -E -p < message-file" if you have the mail message in a file,
or "dsgrep -p -t trn-number source-reviewers | patch -E -p" if what
you have is a transaction number in the source-reviewers discuss
meeting.

When reviewing a change, be sure to make your position on the change
clear.  Say "I object to this change" if you are not merely voicing a
concern, or "I would like these questions answered before this change
is committed" if you have asked questions and are not merely curious.
When your objections are responded to, you should in turn respond in a
timely fashion saying whether your objections have been satisfied or
not.  If the dispute appears intractable, say so, so that the issue
may be brought up before the release team.

If you have reviewed a change carefully and have found nothing wrong
with it, and no one else has responded to the change, you should sign
onto the change rather than remaining silent.  You are encouraged to
try out changes before signing onto them, but in some cases the
inconvenience outweights the benefit of this consideration.

Early checkins
--------------

In some cases it may be appropriate to check in a change in advance of
the normal review period.  The following should be true of those
cases:

        1. The change is obvious and noncontroversial, such as a fix
           for a syntax error.

        2. The problem being fixed is causing an immediate difficulty,
           usually "I'm doing a build of /mit/source and it blows out
           at this point."

The change should still be sent to source-reviewers with a note about
the early checkin.  If the immediate difficulty is "the wash is broken
and I want the next wash to work," then it is good to get a positive
review of the change before checking it in.  Close to a release cycle,
though, that can be ignored.

Third-party sources
-------------------

For modules in the third hierarchy, we generally use the "cvs import"
command to track development from outside.  (To find out if this
applies to a given module, to a "cvs log" of a file in the tree; if
you see a revision 1.1.1.1, then we're using cvs import.)  Do not
check in a new outside version of a third-party package onto the
mainline if it was originally imported with cvs import; it's very
difficult to recover from that particular mistake.  Do, however, check
local changes you made yourself onto the mainline.  Always refer to
doc/third-party before doing an import to see if there are any special
notes on the module you are importing.

Generally, you should only import "clean" third-party source trees
with no modifications.  If you absolutely need to make changes to the
source tree before importing it (check with a release engineer before
deciding that you have to), make a note in the doc/third-party file so
that people doing future imports will know about it.

If you add a new piece of third-party software or import a new
version, you should look over doc/third-party and see if any notes
should be added or modified.  This file is instrumental in locating
new versions of software.

Here are some things to pay attention to when adding or updating a
piece of third-party software:

        * If the package's build system does not use autoconf, you
          will probably need to write a Makefile.athena file telling
          the build system how to build it.

        * If the package's build system does use autoconf, you may
          need to write a configure.athena giving special options to
          pass to the configure script.

        * Most packages will need to be taught how to use DESTDIR.
          Make sure that DESTDIR references don't make it into the
          installed program.

        * If the package installs a file setuid, it needs to specify
          the owner (probably "-o root" if it didn't specify one
          before).  Likewise, a setgid program needs a specified group
          owner, although this is usually done already.  Other than
          that, our fix_owners program will coerce unspecified owners
          and groups to 0.

        * The package should create directories before installing
          files in them.

        * Test your package's build and install.  Preferrably, use the
          "do" command, something like:

                do prepare
                do clean
                do
                do check
                do -d /var/tmp/inst install

          (Replace "do" with "sh /mit/source/packs/build/do.sh" or use
          a shell alias.)  If the package relies on libraries, you can
          use "-c -d /afs/dev.mit.edu/system/<sysname>/srvd-current"
          in the non-install steps to point at them.