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your commit head.  Instead, always make a commit with complete
commit message and generate a series of patches from your
repository.  It is a good discipline.

Describe the technical detail of the change(s).

If your description starts to get too long, that's a sign that you
probably need to split up your commit to finer grained pieces.
That being said, patches which plainly describe the things that
help reviewers check the patch, and future maintainers understand
the code, are the most beautiful patches.  Descriptions that summarise
the point in the subject well, and describe the motivation for the
change, the approach taken by the change, and if relevant how this
differs substantially from the prior version, can be found on Usenet
archives back into the late 80's.  Consider it like good Netiquette,
but for code.

Oh, another thing.  I am picky about whitespaces.  Make sure your
changes do not trigger errors with the sample pre-commit hook shipped
in templates/hooks--pre-commit.  To help ensure this does not happen,
run git diff --check on your changes before you commit.

=head2 (2) Generate your patch using git tools out of your commits.

git based diff tools (git, Cogito, and StGIT included) generate
unidiff which is the preferred format.

You do not have to be afraid to use -M option to "git diff" or
"git format-patch", if your patch involves file renames.  The
receiving end can handle them just fine.

Please make sure your patch does not include any extra files
which do not belong in a patch submission.  Make sure to review
your patch after generating it, to ensure accuracy.  Before
sending out, please make sure it cleanly applies to the "master"
branch head.  If you are preparing a work based on "next" branch,
that is fine, but please mark it as such.

=head2 (3) Sending your patches.

People need to be able to read and comment on the changes you are
submitting.  Do not cut-n-paste your patch; you can lose
tabs that way if you are not careful.

It is a common convention to prefix your subject line with
[PATCH].  This lets people easily distinguish patches from other
e-mail discussions.  Use of additional markers after PATCH and
the closing bracket to mark the nature of the patch is also
encouraged.  E.g. [PATCH/RFC] is often used when the patch is
not ready to be applied but it is for discussion, [PATCH v2],
[PATCH v3] etc. are often seen when you are sending an update to
what you have previously sent.

You often want to add additional explanation about the patch,
other than the commit message itself.  Place such "cover letter"
material between the three dash lines and the diffstat.

Do not PGP sign your patch, at least for now.  Most likely, your
maintainer or other people on the list would not have your PGP
key and would not bother obtaining it anyway.  Your patch is not
judged by who you are; a good patch from an unknown origin has a
far better chance of being accepted than a patch from a known,
respected origin that is done poorly or does incorrect things.

If you really really really really want to do a PGP signed
patch, format it as "multipart/signed", not a text/plain message
that starts with '-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----'.  That is
not a text/plain, it's something else.

Unless your patch is a very trivial and an obviously correct one,
first send it with "To:" set to the RT email (or mailing list), with "cc:"
listing people who are involved in the area you are touching (the output from
"git blame $path" and "git shortlog --no-merges $path" would help to
identify them), to solicit comments and reviews.  After the list
reached a consensus that it is a good idea to apply the patch, re-send
it with "To:" set to the maintainer and optionally "cc:" the list for
inclusion.  Do not forget to add trailers such as "Acked-by:",
"Reviewed-by:" and "Tested-by:" after your "Signed-off-by:" line as
necessary.

=head2 (4) Sign your work

To improve tracking of who did what, we've borrowed the
"sign-off" procedure from the Linux kernel project on patches
that are being emailed around.  Although this project is a lot
smaller it is a good discipline to follow it.

The sign-off is a simple line at the end of the explanation for
the patch, which certifies that you wrote it or otherwise have
the right to pass it on as a open-source patch.  The rules are
pretty simple: if you can certify the below:

        Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1

        By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:

        (a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I
            have the right to submit it under the open source license
            indicated in the file; or

        (b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best
            of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source
            license and I have the right under that license to submit that
            work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part
            by me, under the same open source license (unless I am
            permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated
            in the file; or

        (c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other
            person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified
            it.

        (d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution
            are public and that a record of the contribution (including all
            personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is
            maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with
            this project or the open source license(s) involved.

then you just add a line saying

	Signed-off-by: Random J Developer <random@developer.example.org>

This line can be automatically added by git if you run the git-commit