# Merge with git instead of github UI If someone sends patches by email apply them on top of latest master, and push to upstream. Github pull requests are best to get as extra remote repositories to your working clone, where commits can be rebased, tidied up, and so on, before pushing to upstream. See also https://github.com/iputils/iputils/issues/155 # Do not steal contributions Use git commit --author 'Contributor ' when receiving changes that are not applicable as-is. Not stealing contributions applies even if change has to be worked out, that is common case with commit message. Exception to this rule is a change that is a good idea, but has to be completely rewrote to be acceptable for the project. In this case maintainer should attribute the person who gave the idea in commit message. # Use references in commit messages For example when a change fixes a distribution bug add link to the bug report. Links to reference materials can also be useful when in future trying to understand why something was done. It is also nice when commit id of the change that caused a bug is referred in commit message. That helps understanding what versions are impacted by an issue. # How to make a release Go to release listings https://github.com/iputils/iputils/releases and check what was said in previous release message. Draft release message - remember if you have nothing to say then you don't have good enough reason to publish release. Update iputils.pot: meson . builddir && ninja iputils-pot -C builddir and push this change and ask translators to update translations. Update CHANGES file. It should list the most notable changes and important or security related fixes. Create pull request with these changes to give people chance to review and test upcoming release. Notify distro maintainers, ask community for testing. Create release commit and tag. tag="$(date +%Y%m%d)" sed --in-place "s/version : '.*')/version : '$tag')/" meson.build git add meson.build CHANGES git commit -S --signoff --message "release: iputils-$tag" git tag --sign --annotate $tag --message iputils-$tag Check that the commit and tag looks ok. git show $tag --show-signature Assuming things are great push to github. git push origin master:master git push origin --tags Go to github https://github.com/iputils/iputils/releases and paste the the content of CHANGES file for upcoming release to the text box. Add there also credit for all contributors: Many thanks to the people contributing to this release: git shortlog -s -n $tag.. Also thanks to patch reviewers: git log $tag.. | grep -Ei '(reviewed|acked)-by:' | \ sed 's/.*by: //' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n -r and testers: git log $tag.. | grep -Ei 'tested-by:' | \ sed 's/.*by: //' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n -r Choose the tag you just created. Download the release files, compute sha256 hash: wget -c https://github.com/iputils/iputils/archive/$tag.zip \ https://github.com/iputils/iputils/archive/$tag.tar.gz out="sha256sum" for file in $tag.{zip,tar.gz}; do $out $file >> $out; done Sign tarballs and sha256 hash: for file in $tag.{zip,tar.gz}; do gpg --sign --armor --detach-sign $file; done gpg --clearsign $out and upload all these four files to the release as additional files. The release should be ready. People tend to react to releases, so expect bug reports and pull requests after release. Assuming release has fatal flaw(s) make another one sometime soon. # Maintainers' GPG public keys All maintainers' GPG public keys used for signing tags, releases, commits, etc. are stored in Documentation/project-keys.gpg. When adding new maintainer, add his/her key into tools/update-project-keyring.sh, run it to update keyring and push the result. # Branches in git The upstream repository has exactly one branch and it is `master`. If a maintainer wants to use work in progress branches they need to be kept in personal clone. There are two reasons to do this. For contributors it is nice not to see random branches when cloning upstream repo. Secondly when maintainer wants to add a contributor repo as additional remote it is easier to see what is going on there.