commit mail subject format

[Aggelos Economopoulos]

Simon 'corecode' Schubert wrote:
> For anybody confused about the mail subject, let me explain the thing:
> 
> DragonFly-2.1.1.5.g73473 master test/test README
> ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^
> |           |   |  |     ^branch  ^directory  ^file in directory
> |           |   |  abbreviated commit id
> that's us   |   topological distance to the release, here 5 commits
>           last "release"
> 
> The string "2.1.1.5.g73473" is actually the output of git-describe and
> probably will be used in more places in the future (kernel version, ISO
> build rev, etc)

Why do we need all this stuff in the message Subject? The "DragonFly-"
part is essentially wasted space (gee, like I need to be reminded which
folder I'm reading), space that could be used for something useful.
Also, if I want any of the rest of the info, all I need is the commit id
and I can use git to get it. Maaaybe having the commit id appended (so
it won't intrude too much) to the Subject would be useful so you can
speedily search for any discussions relevant to a commit, but that's
also debatable.

Why can't we use the commit summary or just the branch, directory and
files changed? The whole idea behind the Subject: line is that you can
tell at a glance if you're interested in reading the mail body and I
don't see how this format accomplishes it... All the extra info could go
in the message body if people still want it to be instantly available.
Personally, I only care about the commitid and diffstat, but that's just me.

Another idea would be to stuff the extra info in the headers so that
each subscriber can select which fields to view, but I'd prefer a sane
format that more or less works for everybody.

Opinions?

Aggelos