1 @c -*- coding: utf-8; mode: texinfo; -*-
2 @node Administrative policies
3 @chapter Administrative policies
5 This chapter discusses miscellaneous administrative issues which
6 don't fit anywhere else.
9 * Meta-policy for this document::
11 * Administrative mailing list::
12 * Grand Organization Project (GOP)::
13 * Grand LilyPond Input Syntax Standardization (GLISS)::
17 @node Meta-policy for this document
18 @section Meta-policy for this document
20 The Contributor's Guide as a whole is still a work in progress,
21 but some chapters are much more complete than others. Chapters
22 which are @qq{almost finished} should not have major changes
23 without a discussion on @code{-devel}; in other chapters, a
24 disorganized @qq{wiki-style dump} of information is encouraged.
26 Do not change (other than spelling mistakes) without discussion:
31 @ref{Introduction to contributing}
34 @ref{Working with source code}
38 Please dump info in an appropriate @@section within these manuals,
39 but discuss any large-scale reorganization:
47 @ref{Documentation work}
53 @ref{Regression tests}
56 @ref{Programming work}
61 Totally disorganized; do whatever the mao you want:
75 @ref{Administrative policies}
84 We have four jobs for organizing a team of contributors:
89 Bug Meister: trains new Bug Squad volunteers, organizes who works
90 on which part of their job, checks to make sure that everything is
91 running smoothly, and has final say on our policy for Issues.
96 Doc Meister: trains new doc editors/writers, organizes who works
97 on which part of the job, checks to make sure that everything is
98 running smoothly, and has final say on our policy for
99 Documentation. Also includes LSR work.
104 Translation Meister: trains new translators, updates the
105 translation priority list, and handles merging branches (in both
111 Frog Meister: is responsible for code patches from (relatively)
112 inexperienced contributors. Keeps track of patches, does initial
113 reviewing of those patches, sends them to @code{-devel} when
114 they've had some initial review on the Frog list, pesters the
115 @code{-devel} community into actually reviewing said patches, and
116 finally pushes the patches once they're accepted. This person is
117 @emph{not} responsible for training new programmers, because that
118 would be far too much work -- he job is @qq{only} to guide
119 completed patches through our process.
125 @node Administrative mailing list
126 @section Administrative mailing list
128 An mailing list for administrative issues is maintained at
129 @code{lilypond-hackers@@gnu.org}.
131 This list is intended to be used for discussions that should be kept
132 private. Therefore, the archives are closed to the public.
134 Subscription to this list is limited to certain senior developers.
136 At the present time, the list is dormant.
138 Details about the criteria for membership, the types of discussion
139 to take place on the list, and other policies for the hackers list
140 will be finalized during the
141 @ref{Grand Organization Project (GOP)}.
145 @node Grand Organization Project (GOP)
146 @section Grand Organization Project (GOP)
152 Clarify the various development tasks by writing down the polices
153 and techniques and/or simplifying the tasks directly.
156 Get more people involved in development: specifically, find people
157 to do easy tasks to allow advanced developers to concentrate on
166 * Policy decisions (finished)::
170 @subsection Motivation
172 Most readers are probably familiar with the LilyPond Grand
173 Documentation Project, which ran from Aug 2007 to Aug 2008. This
174 project involved over 20 people and resulted in an almost complete
175 rewrite of the documentation. Most of those contributors were
176 normal users who decided to volunteer their time and effort to
177 improve lilypond for everybody. By any measure, it was a great
180 The Grand Organization Project aims to do the same thing with a
181 larger scope -- instead of focusing purely on documentation, the
182 project aims to improve all parts of LilyPond and its community.
183 Just as with GDP, the main goal is to encourage and train users to
184 become more involved.
186 If you have never contributed to an open-source project before --
187 especially if you use Windows or OSX and do not know how to
188 program or compile programs -- you may be wondering if there's
189 anything you can do. Rest assured that you @emph{can} help.
191 @subheading "Trickle-up" development
193 One of the reasons I'm organizing GOP is "trickle-up"
194 development. The idea is this: doing easy tasks frees up advanced
195 developers to do harder tasks. Don't ask "am I the @emph{best}
196 person for this job"; instead, ask "am I @emph{capable} of doing
197 this job, so that the current person can do stuff I @emph{can't}
200 For example, consider lilypond's poor handling of grace notes in
201 conjunction with clef and tempo changes. Fixing this will require
202 a fair amount of code rewriting, and would take an advanced
203 developer a few weeks to do. It's clearly beyond the scope of a
204 normal user, so we might as well sit back and do nothing, right?
206 No; we @emph{can} help, indirectly. Suppose that our normal user
207 starts answering more emails on lilypond-user. This in turn means
208 that documentation writers don't need to answer those emails, so
209 they can spend more time improving the docs. I've noticed that all
210 doc writers tackle harder and harder subjects, and when they start
211 writing docs on scheme programming and advanced tweaks, they start
212 contributing bug fixes to lilypond. Having people performing these
213 easy-to-moderate bug fixes frees up the advanced developers to
214 work on the really hard stuff... like rewriting the grace note
217 Having 1 more normal user answering emails on lilypond-user won't
218 have a dramatic trick-up affect all by himself, of course. But if
219 we had 8 users volunteering to answer emails, 6 users starting to
220 write documentation, and 2 users editing LSR... well, that would
221 free up a lot of current bug-fixing-capable contributors to focus
222 on that, and we could start to make a real dent in the number of
223 bugs in lilypond. Quite apart from the eased workload, having that
224 many new helpers will provide a great moral boost!
227 @subsection Ongoing jobs
229 Although GOP is a short-term project, the main goal is to train
230 more people to handle ongoing jobs. The more people doing these
231 jobs, the ligher the work will be, and the more we can get done
234 Also, it would be nice if we had at least one "replacement" /
235 "understudy" for each role -- too many tasks are only being done
236 by one person, so if that person goes on vacation or gets very
237 busy with other matters, work in that area grinds to a halt.
239 @subheading Jobs for normal users
243 LilyPond is sometimes critized for not listening to users, but
244 whenever we ask for opinions about specific issues, we never get
245 enough feedback. This is somewhat aggravating.
246 We need a group of users to make a dedicated effort to test and
247 give feedback. If there's new documentation, read it. If there's
248 an experimental binary, download it and try compiling a score with
249 it. If we're trying to name a new command, think about it and give
252 @item lilypond-user support:
253 I think it would be nice if we had an official team of users
256 @item LilyPond Report:
257 Keeping a monthly newsletter running is a non-trivial task. A lot
258 of work is needed to organize it; it would be great if we could
259 split up the work. One person could write the Snippet of the
260 Month, another person could do Quotes of the Month, another person
261 could do interviews, etc.
264 Although GDP (the Grand Documentation Project) did great work,
265 there's still many tasks remaining.
268 Keeping the documentation translations is a monumental task; we
269 need all the help we can get!
273 @subheading Jobs for advanced users for developers
276 @item Git help for writers:
277 We often receive reports of typos and minor text updates to the
278 documentation. It would be great if somebody could create
279 properly-formatted patches for these corrections.
281 Technical requirements: ability to run @ref{Lilydev}.
284 LSR contains many useful examples of lilypond, but some snippets
285 are out of date and need updating. Other snippets need to be
286 advertized, and new snippets need to be sorted. We could use
287 another person to handle LSR.
289 Technical requirements: use of a web browser. LilyPond
290 requirements: you should be familiar with most of Notation
291 chapters 1 and 2 (or be willing to read the docs to find out).
293 @item Join the Frogs:
294 "Frogs" are a team of bug-fixers (because frogs eat bugs, and you
295 often find them in Ponds of Lilies) and new feature implementors.
297 Technical requirements: development environment (such as
298 @ref{Lilydev}), ability to read+write scheme and/or C++ code.
303 @node Policy decisions
304 @subsection Policy decisions
306 There are a number of policy decisions -- some of them fairly
307 important -- which we have been postponing for a few years. We
308 are now discussing them slowly and thoroughly; agenda and exact
309 proposals are online:
312 @uref{http://lilypond.org/~graham/gop/index.html}
315 Below is a list of policies which are not @qq{on the agenda} yet.
317 Note that the presence of an item on this list does @emph{not}
318 mean that everybody thinks that something needs to be done.
319 Inclusion in this simply means that one developer thinks that we
320 should discuss it. We are not going to filter this list; if any
321 developer thinks we should discuss something, just add it to the
322 bottom of the list. (the list is unsorted)
324 As GOP progresses, items from this list will be put on the agenda
325 and removed from this list. I generally try to have one month's
326 discussion planned in advance, but I may shuffle things around to
327 respond to any immediate problems in the developer community.
329 There are some item(s) not displayed here; these are questions
330 that were posed to me privately, and I do not feel justified in
331 discussing them publicly without the consent of the person(s) that
332 brought them up. They will initially be discussed privately on the
333 lilypond-hackers mailing list -- but the first question will be
334 "do we absolutely need to do this privately", and if not, the
335 discussion will take place on lilypond-devel like the other items.
337 In most policy discussions in lilypond over the past few years,
338 the first half (or more) is wasted arguing on the basis of
339 incorrect or incomplete data; once all the relevant facts are
340 brought to light, the argument is generally resolved fairly
341 quickly. In order to keep the GOP discussions focused, each topic
342 will be introduced with a collection of relevant facts and/or
343 proposals. It is, of course, impossible to predict exactly which
344 facts will be relevant to the discussion -- but spending an hour
345 or two collecting information could still save hours of
348 @warning{The estimated time required for "prep work", and the
349 following discussion, has been added to each item. At the moment,
350 there is an estimated 30 hours of prep work and 140 hours of
354 @item @strong{Patch reviewing}:
355 At the time of this writing, we have 23 (known) patches waiting
356 for review. Some from main developers; some from new developers.
357 We desperately need more people helping with lilypond, but
358 ignoring patches is the best way to drive potential contributors
359 away. This is not good.
361 (prep: 2 hours. discuss: 10 hours)
363 @item @strong{Future release policy}:
364 (how) should we change any policies pertaining to releases? Should
365 an undocumented new feature count as release-blocking?
367 (prep: 1 hour. discuss: 15 hours)
369 @item @strong{lilypond-hackers mailing list}:
370 Should we have a private mailing list for senior developers? If
371 so, who should be on it?
373 (prep: 2 hours+3 weeks. discuss: 10 hours)
375 @item @strong{Hackers B}:
378 @item @strong{Git repository(s)}:
379 We currently have a web/ branch in our main repo; this seems
380 misleading to new developers. More generally, should we have
381 branches that aren't related to the master? i.e. should we
382 restrict a git branch to code which is an actual "branch" of
383 development? Also, some of our code (notably the windows and osx
384 lilypad) isn't in a git repository at all.
385 We can add new repositories very easily; should make repositories
388 git://git.sv.gnu.org/lilypond/gub.git
389 git://git.sv.gnu.org/lilypond/lilypad.git
390 git://git.sv.gnu.org/lilypond/misc.git
392 ? More information here:
393 @uref{http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=980}
395 (prep: 2 hours. discuss: 10 hours)
397 @item @strong{Roadmap of future development}:
398 Many projects have a roadmap of planned (or desired) future work.
399 Should we use one? If so, what should go on it, bearing in mind
400 our volunteer status? Is there any way of having a roadmap that
403 (prep: 1 hour. discuss: 5 hours)
405 @item @strong{Official links to other organizations?}:
406 There's something called the "software freedom conservancy", and
407 in general, there's a bunch of "umbrella organizations". Joining
408 some of these might give us more visibility, possibly leading to
409 more users, more developers, maybe even financial grants or use in
412 (prep: 2 hours. discuss: 5 hours)
414 @item @strong{Mailing lists}:
415 We currently have a mix of official GNU mailing lists and lilynet
416 lists. Is there a strong rationale for having separate mailing
417 list servers? Why not pick one place, and put all our lists there?
418 (or at least, all "permanent" lists?)
420 (prep: 1 hour. discuss: 5 hours)
422 @item @strong{Issue tracking with google code}:
423 We use the google issue tracker, but this means that we are
424 relying on a commercial entity for a large part of our
425 development. Would it be better (safer in the long run) to use the
426 savannah bug tracker?
428 (prep: 1 hour. discuss: 5 hours)
430 @item @strong{Patch review tool}:
431 Reitveld is inconvenient in some respects: it requires a google
432 account, and there's no way to see all patches relating to
433 lilypond. Should we switch to something like gerritt?
434 @uref{http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=1184}
436 (prep: 5 hours. discuss: 15 hours)
438 @item @strong{Subdomains of *.lilypond.org}:
439 Unless Jan has a really weird DNS hosting setup, there are no
440 technical barriers to having names like lsr.lilypond.org,
441 frog.lilypond.org, or news.lilypond.org. Is this something that we
444 (prep: 1 hours+2 weeks. discuss: 5 hours)
446 @item @strong{Authorship in source files}:
447 Our documentation currently does not attempt to track individual
448 authors of each file, while our source code makes a confused and
449 jumbled attempt to track this. A number of guidelines for F/OSS
450 projects explicitly recommends _not_ tracking this in individual
451 files, since the code repository will track that for you.
453 (prep: 2 hours. discuss: 15 hours)
455 @item @strong{Clarity for sponsorships}:
456 We currently do not advertize bounties and sponsorships on the
457 webpage. How much advertising do we want, and what type?
458 Should we change the "structure" / "framework" for bounties?
460 (prep: 2 hours. discuss: 10 hours)
462 @item @strong{Separate branches for active development}:
463 it might be good to have @emph{everybody} working on separate
464 branches. This complicates the git setup, but with sufficient
465 logic in lily-git.tcl, we can probably make it transparent to
466 newbies. However, we'd need a reliable person to handle all the
467 required merging and stuff.
469 (prep: 2 hours. discuss: 10 hours)
471 @item @strong{When do we add regtests?}:
472 There is a discrepancy between our stated policy on adding
473 regtests, and our actual practice in handling bugs and patches.
476 There is also a wider question how to organize the regtests, such
477 as where to put interesting-console-output regtests, including
478 stuff like lilypond-book and midi2ly in a sensible manner, and
479 possibly including regtests for currently-broken functionality.
481 (prep: 2 hours. discuss: 5 hours)
483 @item @strong{code readability}:
484 "Our aim when producing source code for Lilypond in whatever
485 language is that it should be totally comprehensible to a
486 relatively inexperienced developer at the second reading."
489 - aids maintainability of code base
490 - "second reading" so newer developers can look up unfamiliar
492 - will help to keep things simple, even if the code is doing
493 complex stuff discourages "secret squirrel" coding, e.g. "how
494 much functionality can I squeeze into as few characters as
495 possible" "comments are for wimps"
496 - will aid not *discouraging* new developers to join the project
498 (prep: 2 hours. discuss: 10 hours)
500 @item @strong{C++ vs. scheme}:
501 what should be in scheme, what should be in C++, what can/should
502 be ported from one to the other, etc. Questions of
503 maintainability, speed (especially considering guile 2.0), and the
504 amount of current material in either form, are important.
506 (prep: 5 hours. discuss: 15 hours)
508 @item @strong{always make an issue number for patches}:
509 there is a proposal that we should always have a google code issue
510 number for every patch. This proposal is closely tied to our
511 choice of patch review tool; if we switch to a different tool (as
512 suggested in a different proposal), this proposal may become moot.
514 (prep: 1 hour. discuss: 5 hours)
516 @item @strong{initalizer lists}:
517 shoudl we use initalizer lists for C++? AFAIK they make no
518 difference for built-in types, but there's some weird case where
519 it's more efficient for objects, or something.
521 Probably not worth making this a weekly thing on its own, but we
522 can probably wrap it up with some other code-related questions.
524 (prep: 15 minutes. discuss: 3 hours)
528 @node Policy decisions (finished)
529 @subsection Policy decisions (finished)
531 @subheading GOP-PROP 1: python formatting
533 We will follow the indentation described in PEP-8.
534 @uref{http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/}
538 use 4 spaces per indentation level
541 never mix tabs and spaces (for indentation)
544 Code indented with a mixture of tabs and spaces should be
545 converted to using spaces exclusively
547 Once this is done, we should add @code{python -tt} to the build
548 system to avoid such errors in the future.
552 There should be absolutely no tab characters for indentation in
553 any @code{.py} file in lilypond git. All such files should be
554 converted to use spaces only.
558 @node Grand LilyPond Input Syntax Standardization (GLISS)
559 @section Grand LilyPond Input Syntax Standardization (GLISS)
565 Start: sortly after 2.14 comes out, which is currently estimated
566 to happen in January 2011.
569 Length: 6-12 months. We're not going to rush this.
572 Goal: define an input which we commit to being
573 machine-updateable for the forseeable future. Any future patches
574 which change the syntax in a non-convert-ly-able format will be
575 rejected. (subject to the limitations, below)
576 Once this is finished, we will release lilypond 3.0.
581 @subheading The Problem
583 One of the biggest complaints people have with lilypond -- other
584 than silly thing like "there's no gui" -- is the changing syntax.
585 Now, inventing a language or standards is difficult. If you set
586 it in stone too soon, you risk being stuck with decisions which
587 may limit matters. If you keep on updating the syntax,
588 interaction with older data (and other programs!) becomes complex.
590 @subheading Scope and Limitations
594 tweaks will not be included. Anything with \override, \set,
595 \overrideProperty, \tweak, \revert, \unset... including even those
596 command names themselves... is still fair game for NOT_SMART
600 other than that, everything is on the table. Is it a problem to
601 have the tagline inside \header? What should the default behavior
602 of \include be? When we abolish \times, do we move to \tuplet 3:2
603 or \tuplet 2/3 or what (for typical triplets in 4/4 time)?
606 we need to get standards for command names. This will help users
607 remember them, and reduce the options for future names (and
608 potential renamings later on). \commandOn and \commandOff seem to
609 work well (should we *always* have an Off command?), but what
610 about the "command" part? Should it be \nounVerbOn, or
611 \verbNounOn ? Or \verbNotesWithExtraInformationOn ?
614 we need standards for the location of commands. Ligature
615 brackets, I'm looking at you. (non-postfix notation must die!)
618 this Grand Project doesn't affect whether we have a 2.16 or not.
619 The main problem will be deciding what to do (with a bit of
620 messiness anticipated for \tuplet); we should definitely release a
621 2.16 before merging _any_ of these changes.
624 we obviously can't /guarantee/ that we'll /never/ make any
625 non-convert-ly changes in the basic format. But we *can*
626 guarantee that such changes would force lilypond 4.0, and that we
627 would only do so for overwhelmingly good reasons.
635 We're going to have lots and lots of emails flying around. The
636 vast majority won't really fit into either -devel or -user, so
637 we'll use a list devoted to syntax issues.
640 Once we have a serious proposal that gained general acceptance
641 from the separate syntax mailing list, I'll bring it to -devel.
642 We're not going to make any changes without discussing it on
643 -devel, but if we're going to have huge threads about English
644 grammar and silly ideas, and I don't want to clutter up -devel.
645 Once whatever chaotic silliness on the syntax list is settled
646 down, I'll bring the ideas to -devel.
649 as with GDP, I'll moderate the discussion. Not as with mailist
650 moderation, but rather by introducing issues at specific times.
651 We don't want a free-for-all discussion of all parts of the syntax
652 at once; nothing will get resolved.
655 Whenever possible, we'll decide on policies at the highest level
656 of abstraction. For example, consider \numericTimeSignature,
657 \slurUp, \xNotesOn, \startTextSpan, and \verylongfermata. One of
658 them starts with the name of the notation first (slur). One has
659 an abbreviation (x instead of cross). One has the verb at the end
660 (On), another has it at the beginning (start). The adjective can
661 come at the beginning (numeric, x) or end (Up). Most are in
662 camelCase, but one isn't (verylongfermata).
665 Instead of arguing about each individual command, we'll decide on
666 abstract questions. Should each command begin the notation-noun,
667 or the verb? Should all commands be in camelCase, or should we
668 make everything other than articulations in camelCase but make
669 articulations all lower-case? Are abbreviations allowed?
672 Once we've answered such fundamental questions, most of the syntax
673 should fall into place pretty easily. There might be a few odd
674 questions left ("is it a span, or a spanner?"), but those can be
675 settled fairly quickly.
679 @subheading Implementation
681 Nothing until the project is finished, then we declare the next
682 stable release (2.16.0 or 2.18.0 ?) to be the final 2.x version,
683 release it, then apply all the GLISS syntax changes and start
684 testing a beta for 3.0 a week or two later.
686 @subheading Discussion
688 Don't respond to any of the specifics yet. Yes, we all have our
689 pet irritations (like "what's up with \paper and \layout?!").
690 There will be plenty of time to discuss them once GLISS starts.
692 That said, we have a list of specific items that people really
693 wanted to have written down. See @ref{Specific GLISS issues}.
696 * Specific GLISS issues::
700 @node Specific GLISS issues
701 @subsection Specific GLISS issues
705 add regtests for every piece of syntax (not one-command-per-file,
706 but making a few files which, between them, use every single piece
707 of syntax.) This is a great test for convert-ly.
710 should GLISS cover suggested conventions? (indentation,
711 one-bar-per-line, etc -- the kind of stuff we list for the
712 lilypond formatting in the docs ?)
715 how much (if any) syntactic sugar should we add? i.e.
717 \instrumentName #'foo
719 \set Staff.instrumentName
721 ? Carl: maybe yes, Neil: no. (for example, it fails for
725 the values that are used as arguments to common used overrides.
726 Sometimes they are a symbol (e.g. #'around), sometimes a
727 predefined variable referring to a Scheme value or object (e.g.
728 #LEFT, #all-visible ). The main trouble is that for novice users
729 it is not clear when there should be an apostrophe and when not.
732 When do we need -\command and when is it just \command ?
736 Command-line options to the lilypond binary. -dfoo counts as a
737 tweak; we won't be trying to pin those down.
750 If would be pedagogically simpler to realize this difference if
751 the syntax was separate if you define a context from scratch (as
752 is the case with \RemoveEmptyStaffContext) or if it's defined by
753 adding onto an existing context. For example, a syntax like
757 % Copy the current settings of the Staff context:
759 % do whatever additional settings
761 %%% could be used to distinguish from
763 % Take settings from a variable:
765 % do whatever additional settings
771 % Start from scratch:
780 Capitalization of identifiers: \VoiceOne ?
785 { music expression } * 4
787 \repeat unfold 4 { music expression }
792 @uref{http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2010-04/msg00467.html}
796 Personally, I find it easier to understand when there's a repeated
797 8 in the half-bar position; it's much easier to see that you have
802 %%% instead of one group of eight:
807 trivially simple bar-lines:
811 encourage, allow, or discourage, or disallow?
814 indentation of \\ inside a @{@} construct.
818 barline checks at the end of line should be preceded by at least 2
819 spaces? barline checks should line up if possible (i.e. if you
820 can use less than 4, 8, X empty spaces before a barline check to
824 Why doesn't \transpose respect \relative mode?
828 on \score vs. \new Score
830 But in the light of a consistent syntax and semantic, I see no
831 reason (from the users POV) to disallow it. After all, the real
832 top-level context is a \book @{@}, isn't it, and I don't see a point
833 in disallowing a \new Score construct just like \new Staff.
835 From a syntactical POV, I see the following pros for \new Score:
836 - You can write \with @{ ... @} for every other context but \Score,
837 which (for consistency) should also work with \new Score.
838 - When there's a \new Foo Bar, there's also a \context Foo Bar,
839 which makes the same as a parallel instantiation of all Bar's.
841 @uref{http://www.mail-archive.com/lilypond-devel@@gnu.org/msg14713.html}
842 "I know that the \score-statement is a syntactical construct,
843 but I think it would be nice to hide this fact from the users. I
844 think we could make the use of score-block much more intuitive if
845 changing the syntax to \new \Score and adding an implicit
846 sequential-statement to the score."
851 @uref{http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=1322}
852 about \new vs. \context.
856 Let users add their own items to the parser? comment 11 on:
857 @uref{http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=1322}
860 should engravers be pluralized (note_heads_engraver) or not
861 (note_head_engraver) ?
864 should we allow numbers in identifier names? Issue:
865 @uref{http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=1670}
868 should we officially allow accented characters? in general, how
869 do we feel about utf-8 stuff?
872 for the sake of completeness/simplicity, what about *disallowing*
873 the "one-note" form of a music expression? i.e. only allowing
876 \transpose c d { e1 }
877 \transpose c d << e1 >>
888 @node Unsorted policies
889 @section Unsorted policies
891 @subsubheading Language-specific mailing lists
893 A translator can ask for an official lilypond-xy mailing list once
894 they've finished all @qq{priority 1} translation items.
896 @subsubheading Performing yearly copyright update (@qq{grand-replace})
898 At the start of each year, copyright notices for all source files
899 should be refreshed by running the following command from the top of
906 Internally, this invokes the script @file{scripts/build/grand-replace.py},
907 which performs a regular expression substitution for old-year -> new-year
908 wherever it finds a valid copyright notice.
910 Note that snapshots of third party files such as @file{texinfo.tex} should
911 not be included in the automatic update; @file{grand-replace.py} ignores these
912 files if they are listed in the variable @code{copied_files}.
915 @subsubheading Push git access
917 Git access is given out when a contributor has a significant
918 record of patches being accepted without problems. If existing
919 developers are tired of pushing patches for a contributor, we'll
920 discuss giving them push access. Unsolicited requests from
921 contributors for access will almost always be turned down.