Setting Up CVS Commit Emails In SourceForge

One key component of open source projects is getting others involved in code review. In fact, that has always been one of the promises of open source software that with the hundreds and thousands of eyeballs looking at the code, the quality will be higher. In practice this doesn’t necessarily work out because the majority of open source projects only have a few eyeballs at work.

Also, in order to get those eyeballs reviewing code, the bar of entry must be low. Requiring users to set up CVS and track commit logs is a major hurdle. That’s where commit emails come in. Commit emails are triggered by a commit to the source code repository and typically contain the log message of the commit, which file or files were changed, and a diff of the changes.

Having others review commit emails also keeps people honest in their log messages and provides a means to help propagate and support project standards.

Originally I intended to generate an RSS Feed for commits, but I found that the approach I was taking was impossible in SourceForge. SourceForge does not allow writing to the Web Shell Services from scripts running within CVS. However, I have another idea brewing that won’t require file write access to the shell web services, but I#&8217;ll need to brush up on Python first.

Sourceforge uses CVS syncmail for sending out email notifications of commits within CVS. Each email provides the log message and a diff (an example is at the bottom).

Setting this up is pretty well described by the documentation. The only thing I have to add is that to checkout the CVSROOT module, follow the same instructions for checking out the project’s main module as I wrote in the past , but enter "CVSROOT" for the Module name at the bottom of the TortoiseCVS dialog.

This is currently set up for Subtext (click here if you wish to subscribe).

Example of a commit message

Update of /cvsroot/subtext/CVSROOT
In directory sc8-pr-cvs1.sourceforge.net:/tmp/cvs-serv11754

Modified Files:
	loginfo
Log Message:
Changing the comment for the purpose of testing commit emails.

Index: loginfo
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/subtext/CVSROOT/loginfo,v
retrieving revision 1.7
retrieving revision 1.8
diff -C2 -d -r1.7 -r1.8
*** loginfo	16 Jan 2006 17:02:50 -0000	1.7
--- loginfo	16 Jan 2006 17:07:31 -0000	1.8
***************
*** 27,33 ****
  #DEFAULT (echo "; id; echo %{sVv}; date; cat) >> $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/commitlog
  
! # This line sends all changes to the CVSROOT module to the user specified ! # by USERNAME. It is recommended that someone be watching this module ! # as it shouldn't need to be modified very often.
  CVSROOT /cvsroot/sitedocs/CVSROOT/cvstools/syncmail %{sVv} haacked@users.sourceforge.net
  
--- 27,32 ----
  #DEFAULT (echo "; id; echo %{sVv}; date; cat) >> $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/commitlog
  
! # This line sends all changes to the CVSROOT module to the specified email address.  
! # This module shouldn't need to be modified very often.
  CVSROOT /cvsroot/sitedocs/CVSROOT/cvstools/syncmail %{sVv} haacked@users.sourceforge.net