Re: VC-SVN problem

[Karl Fogel]

Shawn Boyette <address@hidden> wrote regarding vc-svn.el:
> > Shawn, in the meantime, see if putting 
> > 
> >    (require 'cl)
> > 
> > in your .emacs fixes the problem.
> 
> Indeed it does; many thanks.

So, I'd like to fix this in vc-svn.el, in the simplest way: by adding
(require 'cl) so that 'list*' is available.

But that brings me to a larger question, which is, what *are* the
criteria for committing to files in Emacs?  I've been trying to grok
the answer by watching this list, but that's not working as well as
I'd hoped.

I'm not talking about controversial new features here.  Clearly, those
need to be discussed on the list, and a consensus should emerge,
before they are checked in.  I'm just talking about bugfixes (like
this one to vc-svn.el) and minor enhancements.

In some other projects, a committer can commit anywhere, according to
their judgement.  If a change is wrong, or non-optimal, this can be
brought up on the list later and the problem can be resolved with a
new change, or an explanation of why the old change really is okay, or
whatever.  In other projects, voting is required; in still other
projects, approvial by an area maintainer is required.

These policies are usually spelled out in some file called HACKING or
DEVEL or MAINTENANCE, in the top level of the project.  There are no
such written guidelines for Emacs, as far as I can tell (?).  The only
thing I've been able to glean from lurking is that

   a) RMS seems to have the final say
   b) certain area maintainers commit without discussion

I haven't rethreaded this message, because it might be that the answer
is simple and doesn't need to happen in a new thread.  (Maybe there's
a written guideline, and I just missed it somehow?)

Anyway, to return to my original question: is it okay to commit this
change to vc-svn.el?

Thanks,
-Karl

P.S. Is emacs-commit unused now?  It appears to be all spam since the
     beginning of this year, according to the archives, though there
     were real commit mails before then.  The exact same situation
     seems to hold for emacs-diffs, which makes me wonder if they're
     not two names for the same list...

     http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-commit/
     http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-diffs/