Re: Do NOT commit executable po files!

[Christian Rose <menthos gnome org>]

ons 2003-10-29 klockan 09.52 skrev Christophe Fergeau:
> Wouldn't it be possible to automatically fix those wrong permissions on
> the server ? For example by automatically fixing them when new files are
> added if that's doable with cvs

Having a commit check is possible in a CVS, just like it is to have
ACL:s (access control lists) so that translators could for example only
commit po files.

But we don't have that with GNOME CVS, I think at least partly because
the current CVS server wouldn't cope with it, but also because many
(including me) have the opinion that we should not be overly restrictive
with people's accounts, so that people can easily contribute in other
areas. If, as an example, a person that was originally only a translator
would want to contribute simple bug fixes (after getting the necessary
spoken permission from the module maintainer though!), then he or she
should not have to also go through some other bureacracy to technically
be able to commit other things than po files.

But this adds many responsibilities to committing translators:

* They need to make sure on their own that they are only committing a
translation (unless they have approval for something else)
* They need to make sure on their own that they are only committing a
translation for their own team (unless they have approval for something
else)
* They need to make sure on their own that they have approval from their
own team in committing that translation (unless they have approval for
something else)
* They need to make sure on their own that the committed translation is
properly encoded in UTF-8
* They need to make sure on their own that the committed translation is
valid and passes the msgfmt test
* They need to make sure on their own that the committed translation
does not have executable permissions
* They need to make sure on their own that they've added proper
ChangeLog entries
..etc.

That's part of why we have the
http://developer.gnome.org/doc/tutorials/gnome-i18n/translator.html
document, to list those things that have to be done.

Many of these things could be automated with ACL:s and the proper
automated checks, but I'm not sure we'd want that. Instead, we probably
want people that understand what responsibilites they have when they've
recieved a cvs account.


> or having a script running daily/weekly
> which would do a chmod a-x on all po files ?

What about packages released in the mean time? The goal is to keep CVS
buildable at all times, so all committers have the responsibility to
check that they don't break anything so that things don't build. I think
this should certainly also apply to things being properly packable.


Christian