Commit 406ea5c0 authored by Marcin Serwin's avatar Marcin Serwin Committed by Alyssa Ross
Browse files

CONTRIBUTING: allow fetching unaccepted changes if the URL is stable 

Reword documentation to allow using `fetchpatch` for changes that are
not yet merged upstream. Additionally, put a greater emphasis on URL
stability.

fixes #400873
parent 8d21d162

pkgs/README.md

+3 −2
Original line number Diff line number Diff line
@@ -508,7 +508,7 @@ In the interest of keeping our maintenance burden and the size of Nixpkgs to a m 
  patches = [

    (fetchpatch {

      name = "fix-check-for-using-shared-freetype-lib.patch";

      url = "http://git.ghostscript.com/?p=ghostpdl.git;a=patch;h=8f5d285";

      url = "https://cgit.ghostscript.com/cgi-bin/cgit.cgi/ghostpdl.git/patch/?id=8f5d28536e4518716fdfe974e580194c8f57871d";

      hash = "sha256-uRcxaCjd+WAuGrXOmGfFeu79cUILwkRdBu48mwcBE7g=";

    })

  ];
@@ -517,12 +517,13 @@ In the interest of keeping our maintenance burden and the size of Nixpkgs to a m 


If a patch is available online but does not cleanly apply, it can be modified in some fixed ways by using additional optional arguments for `fetchpatch`. Check [the `fetchpatch` reference](https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/unstable/#fetchpatch) for details.



When adding patches in this manner you should be reasonably sure that the used URL is stable. Patches referencing open pull requests will change when the PR is updated and code forges (such as GitHub) usually garbage collect commits that are no longer reachable due to rebases/amends.



### Vendoring patches



In the following cases, a `.patch` file _should_ be added to Nixpkgs repository, instead of retrieved:



- solves problems unique to packaging in Nixpkgs

- is already proposed upstream but not merged yet

- cannot be fetched easily

- has a high chance to disappear in the future due to unstable or unreliable URLs