[cfe-dev] Commit message policy?

[Renato Golin]

Folks,

After looking at git / svn logs for a long time today, I realised that
the commit messages could be a bit more helpful for that purpose
(logs). The kernel has a good policy on commit messages, and I think
we could use some of that, at least as a strong guideline, not as a
hard rule.

The idea, AFAIK, is to have a title with 50 chars, separated by an
empty line and an infinite number of 80-col lines following. That
allows us to be very descriptive on the context, but succinct enough
on the title, so that logs can fit on a reasonably sized terminal +
git ids, etc.

Is that something we want to follow? I could only find the attribution
rule on the developer's policy (which we should definitely keep), but
would be good to have at least some policy on the commit message
itself.

Also, policies for messages when reverting patches, arc commits,
approval lists would be good to have documented, rather than keep
replying to people on the list.

cheers,
--renato

PS: I don't want us to revert patches with non-standard messages, only
encourage people to do it right.