Gnome Applets doesn't directly use the ChangeLog system anymore. Instead a ChangeLog is generated from git commit messages at "make dist" time. When committing a patch using git, you must use a checkin comment that fully describes the changes made. The following guidelines were largely stolen from the GTK+ project (http://git.gnome.org/cgit/gtk+/tree/README.commits): The expected format for git commit messages is as follows: === begin example commit === Short explanation of the commit Longer explanation explaining exactly what's changed, whether any external or private interfaces changed, what bugs were fixed (with bug tracker reference if applicable) and so forth. Be concise but not too brief. === end example commit === - Always add a brief description of the commit to the _first_ line of the commit and terminate by two newlines (it will work without the second newline, but that is not nice for the interfaces). - First line (the brief description) must only be one sentence and should start with a capital letter unless it starts with a lowercase symbol or identifier. Don't use a trailing period either. Don't exceed 72 characters. - The main description (the body) is normal prose and should use normal punctuation and capital letters where appropriate. Normally, for patches sent to a mailing list it's copied from there. - When committing code on behalf of others use the --author option, e.g. git commit -a --author "Joe Coder " and --signoff. - If the checkin is related to a bug, reference the bug number. - Checkin comments MUST use the UTF-8 encoding. - Avoid meaningless checkin comments such as "forgotten file" ! If you forget to check in some changes that belonged in the same commit (e.g. you accidentally omitted a file), you must copy the checkin comment from the previous, incomplete checkin, and additionally reference that commit's svn revision number. Do NOT commit to this module without permission from a maintainer. See the MAINTAINERS file for who they are.