Move and update README.SVN-RULES to README.GIT-RULES

Author: johannes

README.GIT-RULES

@@ -0,0 +1,124 @@
+====================
+  Git Commit Rules
+====================
+
+This is the first file you should be reading when contributing code via Git.
+We'll assume you're basically familiar with Git, but feel free to post
+your questions on the mailing list. Please have a look at
+http://git-scm.com/ for more detailed information on Git.
+
+PHP is developed through the efforts of a large number of people.
+Collaboration is a Good Thing(tm), and Git lets us do this. Thus, following
+some basic rules with regards to Git usage will::
+
+   a. Make everybody happier, especially those responsible for maintaining
+      Git itself.
+
+   b. Keep the changes consistently well documented and easily trackable.
+
+   c. Prevent some of those 'Oops' moments.
+
+   d. Increase the general level of good will on planet Earth.
+
+Having said that, here are the organizational rules::
+
+   1. Respect other people working on the project.
+
+   2. Discuss any significant changes on the list before committing and get
+      confirmation from the release manager for the given branch.
+
+   3. Look at EXTENSIONS file to see who is the primary maintainer of
+      the code you want to contribute to.
+
+   4. If you "strongly disagree" about something another person did, don't
+      start fighting publicly - take it up in private email.
+
+   5. If you don't know how to do something, ask first!
+
+   6. Test your changes before committing them. We mean it. Really.
+      To do so use "make test".
+
+   7. For development use the --enable-maintainer-zts switch to ensure your
+      code handles TSRM correctly and doesn't break for those who need that.
+
+Currently we have the following branches in use::
+
+  master    The active development branch. 
+
+  PHP-5.4   Is used to release the PHP 5.4.x series. It still allows for
+            larger enhancements.
+
+  PHP-5.3   Is used to release the PHP 5.3.x series. This is current 
+            stable version and is open for bugfixes only.
+
+  PHP-5.2   Is used to release the PHP 5.2.x series. It is closed for 
+            changes now.
+
+  PHP-5.1   This branch is closed.
+
+  PHP-4.4   This branch is closed.
+
+The next few rules are more of a technical nature::
+
+   1. All changes should first go to the lowest branch (i.e. 5.3) and then 
+      get merged up to all other branches. If a change is not needed for
+      later branches (i.e. fixes for features which where dropped from later
+      branches) an empty merge should be done.
+
+   2. All news updates intended for public viewing, such as new features,
+      bug fixes, improvements, etc., should go into the NEWS file of the
+      *first* to be released version with the given change. In other words
+      any NEWS file change only needs to done in one branch.
+
+   3. Do not commit multiple file and dump all messages in one commit. If you
+      modified several unrelated files, commit each group separately and
+      provide a nice commit message for each one. See example below.
+
+   4. Do write your commit message in such a way that it makes sense even
+      without the corresponding diff. One should be able to look at it, and
+      immediately know what was modified. Definitely include the function name
+      in the message as shown below.
+
+   5. In your commit messages, keep each line shorter than 80 characters. And
+      try to align your lines vertically, if they wrap. It looks bad otherwise.
+
+   6. If you modified a function that is callable from PHP, prepend PHP to
+      the function name as shown below.
+
+
+The format of the commit messages is pretty simple.
+
+<max 79 characters short description>\n
+\n
+<long description, 79 chars per line>
+\n
+
+An Example from the git project (commit 2b34e486bc):
+
+pack-objects: Fix compilation with NO_PTHREDS
+  
+It looks like commit 99fb6e04 (pack-objects: convert to use
+parse_options(), 2012-02-01) moved the #ifdef NO_PTHREDS around but
+hasn't noticed that the 'arg' variable no longer is available.
+
+If you fix some bugs, you should note the bug ID numbers in your
+commit message. Bug ID should be prefixed by "#" for easier access to
+bug report when developers are browsing CVS via LXR or Bonsai.
+
+Example::
+
+  Fixed bug #14016 (pgsql notice handler double free crash bug.)
+
+When you change the NEWS file for a bug fix, then please keep the bugs
+sorted in decreasing order under the fixed version.
+
+You can use OpenGrok (http://lxr.php.net/) and gitweb (http://git.php.net/)
+to look at PHP Git repository in various ways.
+
+
+For further information on the process and further details please refer to
+https://wiki.php.net/vcs/gitworkflow and https://wiki.php.net/vcs/gitfaq
+
+Happy hacking,
+
+PHP Team