Would anyone STOP contributing to Python if we used GitHub?
Over at core-workflow@ we are discussing details of the GitHub and GitLab proposals and one of the worries the GitLab supporters have brought up is that some core developers could flat-out stop contributing if we moved to GitHub. Now I have major doubts that's true as no one has told me that is the case yet after all the time that this workflow change has been discussed, but I would not be doing my due diligence if I didn't check to make sure I truly didn't need to consider this in my final decision.
So, if you would actually *stop* contributing to Python's development if we switched to GitHub, please let me know (and this is obviously addressed to us core developers and not external contributors since they can always submit old-style patches through the issue tracker). This is not asking about preference or you would only begrudgingly use GitHub since some people will begrudgingly do whatever decision I reach, so please don't reply about begrudging use so I can keep the signal:noise ratio down; only reply with "I will quit Python over GitHub" emails.
You can email me privately if you want, but let me know if you care if I share this with very select people like Guido. Also realize that anyone who says they will walk away will be held to their word; if we still choose to switch to GitHub I will expect you to no longer contribute to Python and will personally hold you to your word (which also makes private emails a little moot, but I can understand if you would rather fade away than make a public political statement). I'm saying this not to be threaten people into not giving me an answer but because I want to get the point across that this is a very serious question, so I don't want any wavering on the answer.
Please let me know by Wednesday, Dec 16 if you would walk away. I know it's not a ton of time but I said I expect silence so I don't want to be sitting around to find out the results of this question.
Brett Cannon <brett@python.org> wrote: > You can email me privately if you want, but let me know if you care if I share this with > very select people like Guido. Also realize that anyone who says they will walk away will > be held to their word; if we still choose to switch to GitHub I will expect you to no longer > contribute to Python and will personally hold you to your word (which also makes private > emails a little moot, but I can understand if you would rather fade away than make a public > political statement). I'm saying this not to be threaten people into not giving me an answer > but because I want to get the point across that this is a very serious question, so I don't > want any wavering on the answer.
This doesn't concern me, since I've already said on core-workflow that I'll stay regardless of the decision. Still, this sounds more like an ultimatum than a survey. ;)
Wavering is completely natural on such matters, for example the ctypes maintainer mentioned in his goodbye message (shortly after the svn -> hg transition) that he hadn't even looked at mercurial yet. Which indicates to me that churn in the workflow can be a contributing factor in decisions like that.
More than that, changing one's opinion is rather natural, too. As a real world example, I intensely disliked f-strings when they were discussed initially. I prudently stayed out of the discussion altogether, and when I saw Eric's implementation I was instantly sold. That's a complete reversal from -1 to +1.
I can't imagine that a statistician would accept any results derived from an inquiry worded like that.
Stefan Krah
On Sun, 13 Dec 2015 at 09:55 s.krah stefan@bytereef.org wrote:
*Brett Cannon <brett@python.org brett@python.org>* wrote:
You can email me privately if you want, but let me know if you care if I
share this with
very select people like Guido. Also realize that anyone who says they
will walk away will
be held to their word; if we still choose to switch to GitHub I will
expect you to no longer
contribute to Python and will personally hold you to your word (which
also makes private
emails a little moot, but I can understand if you would rather fade away
than make a public
political statement). I'm saying this not to be threaten people into not
giving me an answer
but because I want to get the point across that this is a very serious
question, so I don't
want any wavering on the answer.
This doesn't concern me, since I've already said on core-workflow that I'll stay regardless of the decision. Still, this sounds more like an ultimatum than a survey. ;)
It's about absolutes and not maybes for me on this question.
Wavering is completely natural on such matters, for example the ctypes maintainer mentioned in his goodbye message (shortly after the svn -> hg transition) that he hadn't even looked at mercurial yet. Which indicates to me that churn in the workflow can be a contributing factor in decisions like that.
Sure, and I have already received an email from someone saying that a change to git might really hurt their ability to ramp up and contribute at their admittedly small amount that they currently do (I also pointed out hg-git exists so it won't be quite a transition as the svn -> hg one).
More than that, changing one's opinion is rather natural, too. As a real world example, I intensely disliked f-strings when they were discussed initially. I prudently stayed out of the discussion altogether, and when I saw Eric's implementation I was instantly sold. That's a complete reversal from -1 to +1.
And that's fine and I'm not saying some people won't come to dislike whatever decision I make (I actually expect it). But the whole point with this is to find out if anyone is fundamentally against GitHub at a moral level. You can say you don't like GitHub's workflow style, their colours, whatever, and you can possibly get over it. But if you have moral issues with GitHub because it's closed source or commercial and refuse to use it on that basis then the chances of you changing your mind on that is probably fairly slim.
I can't imagine that a statistician would accept any results derived from an inquiry worded like that.
My inquiry is to see if anyone has such reservations about GitHub that there is no chance they will ever use it because of fundamentally held beliefs. The email is strongly worded because I only care about people with strong feelings. The email was purposefully worded to measure a specific sentiment.
Brett Cannon <brett <at> python.org> writes:
Over at core-workflow we are discussing details of the GitHub and GitLab proposals
I don't have any strong feelings against GitHub, and I understand you want to bring out strong feelings, but
Also realize that anyone who says they will walk away will be held to their word; if we still choose to switch to GitHub I will expect you to no longer contribute to Python and will personally hold you to your word
seems a little strong. Even principled people can change their minds about things, can't they? To me, this does come across like an ultimatum (Stefan's word) or a threat (your word) - as if you want to somehow punish people who make the "wrong" decision now, even if they relent later (which might be for perfectly valid reasons). What's the justification for this bit of it? I would have thought it would be enough for people to say if they are going to walk away - if they later on change their minds, eat humble pie (which would be evident to those who care) and want to come back, why would you want to exclude contributors who have already passed a certain commitment/competence bar to become Python committers? One of the reasons touted for adopting GitHub is to increase the number of contributors and contributions, not to decrease them, surely.
Perhaps I've just misunderstood the tone in your post. I hope that's so.
Regards,
Vinay Sajip
On Tue, 15 Dec 2015 at 08:58 Vinay Sajip vinay_sajip@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Brett Cannon <brett <at> python.org> writes:
Over at core-workflow we are discussing details of the GitHub and GitLab proposals
I don't have any strong feelings against GitHub, and I understand you want to bring out strong feelings, but
Also realize that anyone who says they will walk away will be held to their word; if we still choose to switch to GitHub I will expect you to no longer contribute to Python and will personally hold you to your word
seems a little strong. Even principled people can change their minds about things, can't they?
Of course they can.
To me, this does come across like an ultimatum (Stefan's word) or a threat (your word) - as if you want to somehow punish people who make the "wrong" decision now, even if they relent later (which might be for perfectly valid reasons). What's the justification for this bit of it?
I would have thought it would be enough for people to say if they are going to walk away - if they later on change their minds, eat humble pie (which would be evident to those who care) and want to come back, why would you want to exclude contributors who have already passed a certain commitment/competence bar to become Python committers? One of the reasons touted for adopting GitHub is to increase the number of contributors and contributions, not to decrease them, surely.
Perhaps I've just misunderstood the tone in your post. I hope that's so.
It's meant to convey that I want people to seriously think about telling me that GitHub would cause them to walk away. I'm not interested in knee jerk reactions here because telling me that GitHub will walk away is a very serious statement that potentially impacts us all.
And I didn't say "leave and never come back", I simply said "plan to leave because you said you would". If I announce on January 1 we are going with GitHub I don't really expect your view to change in two weeks, so be prepared to stick to your word. Now if after walking away and some months have passed you have a change of heart then of course you can admit you have changed your mind and come back. They key point here -- and why I didn't do an anonymous survey -- is that I need the weight of this to be properly communicated; if there were a group of core developers who had ideological issues with GitHub to the point of leaving Python development then I need to know that to know if that minority is enough to warrant ignoring GitHub for all of us.
I'm sorry if this came off as a threat that I'm holding over people to scare them or it comes off as me trying to be a bully to people. I'm simply trying to make sure I get answers to this question which are truly sincere and the importance of the answer is properly communicated.
On 15/12/15 18:11, Brett Cannon wrote:
I'm sorry if this came off as a threat that I'm holding over people to scare them or it comes off as me trying to be a bully to people. I'm simply trying to make sure I get answers to this question which are truly sincere and the importance of the answer is properly communicated.
I don't like github. Centralization is a threat and I try to do as much as I can to counterbalance it. That Python developers helps github to get bigger even is something to be sad about.
I love Mercurial. I think that GIT is inconsistent and dangerous, and the only reason for its success is networking effect and services like github. I must say that I was proud of Python committers when the decision to migrate to Mercurial was done.
I have quite strong opinions about all this.
That said, I value Python a lot and my status as a core developer, even if my contributions are sparse. I want to help to improve the language and I enjoy to be part of the process.
Migrating to github, if it happens, WILL NOT stop my contributions at all, but for me is a lost battle against centralization, independence, and what Internet should be. Helping to grow a private business where WE would be the product, with a future plan/roadmap we don't have a word about and just to use a closed source product. Interestingly, git was created as a reaction to bitkeeper closed product... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_%28software%29#History.
I realize that my weight as a very low activity committer is minimal and I don't have an alternative proposal. Just voicing my disappointment.
PS: Given a migration to a closed service, I would rather prefer to migrate to bitbucket, even using GIT (puf!), just to help to keep alive a healthy competition to GitHUB.
On 16 December 2015 at 08:00, Barry Warsaw barry@python.org wrote:
On Dec 15, 2015, at 10:51 PM, Jesus Cea wrote:
I realize that my weight as a very low activity committer is minimal and I don't have an alternative proposal.
An alternative which meets many of your criteria is the GitLab proposal in PEP 507.
(TL;DR of below: my own main concern has shifted to ensuring that, even if we choose GitHub now, we can still add GitLab, Kallithea or Phrabricator in parallel later, without disrupting the folks that genuinely prefer GitHub based workflows)
For me personally, regardless of what happens in the near term, I still want to see us eventually offer a free-software-needs-free-tools friendly contribution path running on a project like GitLab CE, Kallithea or Phabricator.
However, I'm also satisfied that, regardless of what we do on the free software side of things, we want to offer a GitHub based contribution path for folks familiar with that workflow (I now see this as similar to the fact we actively work to support both Windows and Mac OS X as user and contributor platforms, even though they're proprietary operating systems).
Having accepted that my own long term goal is to minimise barriers to contribution both for folks accustomed to using popular proprietary platforms *and* for folks that aim to use exclusively free software, I've come around to the view that a compromise "open enough" solution that leaves *nobody* especially happy with the outcome likely isn't a good approach, and hence it's better to pursue a "parallel contribution path" model where we create two *interoperable* workflows, rather than a single *compromise* workflow.
Splitting the two workflows that way means the folks that "just want something that works" can benefit from the use of a commercial freemium service, while folks that genuinely prefer to use free and open source tools are also generally willing to be a bit more forgiving of any deficiencies relative to better funded alternatives.
That means my core requirements for the near term solution have changed markedly from those I documented in my withdrawn workflow PEPs: I now merely want to ensure we don't lock ourselves *out* of adding a parallel free-software-needs-free-tools contribution path later. The GitHub-with-a-merge-bot refinement currently being discussed on the core-workflow list clearly meets that criterion (since a merge bot can be updated to accept submissions from multiple sources), and the GitLab EE proposal in PEP 507 arguably does as well (the features we want from GitLab EE that aren't in GitLab CE are relatively minimal, and hence readily implemented on top of CE as an external script if desired).
Cheers, Nick.
P.S. As an analogy I've been working on, consider how folks typically approach creating a welcoming environment for vegetarians & vegans at a community event. Do they:
- serve exclusively vegetarian & vegan dishes?; or
- provide enjoyable vegetarian & vegan dishes, clearly marked as
such, while also providing non-vegetarian options?
The latter approach is by far the most common one, as the former risks vocal complaints about the lack of meat dishes from non-vegetarians at the event if your event isn't specifically about vegetarianism and veganism. The equivalent we see in open source workflow design is folks resenting being "forced" to use open source and free software solutions that they consider inferior (or at least unfamiliar) in order to participate, rather than being given a free choice between them and their more familiar proprietary competitors.
By the same taken, nobody would consider a community event that refused to cater to special dietary needs to be a particularly welcoming event, which is why I consider it important to offer a free-software-needs-free-tools friendly approach to contribution.
On 2015-12-15, Vinay Sajip wrote:
Brett Cannon <brett <at> python.org> writes:
Also realize that anyone who says they will walk away will be held to their word; if we still choose to switch to GitHub I will expect you to no longer contribute to Python and will personally hold you to your word
seems a little strong. Even principled people can change their minds about things, can't they? To me, this does come across like an ultimatum (Stefan's word) or a threat (your word)
I agree this is too strong. If people don't want to use GitHub, they can clone from a different repos, maybe PSF can even provide one. Patches can be sent using the 'git am' command. I don't see why not using GitHub means you can't contribute to Python. We would be rejecting valuable contributions for no good reason.
You could say something like "you will not get commit access through GitHub". I.e. you will have to get someone else to commit or pull your changes.
Regards,
Neil
On Tue, 15 Dec 2015 at 12:49 Neil Schemenauer nas-python@arctrix.com wrote:
On 2015-12-15, Vinay Sajip wrote:
Brett Cannon <brett <at> python.org> writes:
Also realize that anyone who says they will walk away will be held to their word; if we still choose to switch to GitHub I will expect you to no longer contribute to Python and will personally hold you to your
word
seems a little strong. Even principled people can change their minds
about
things, can't they? To me, this does come across like an ultimatum
(Stefan's
word) or a threat (your word)
I agree this is too strong. If people don't want to use GitHub, they can clone from a different repos, maybe PSF can even provide one. Patches can be sent using the 'git am' command. I don't see why not using GitHub means you can't contribute to Python. We would be rejecting valuable contributions for no good reason.
You could say something like "you will not get commit access through GitHub". I.e. you will have to get someone else to commit or pull your changes.
That's exactly what I meant; I'm not going to push to ban someone from uploading a patch to bugs.python.org. This is entirely about commit/push privileges and who would relinquish them if we switched to GitHub (and simply expecting them to follow through on their relinquishment if they said they would).
On 12/12/2015 03:32 PM, Brett Cannon wrote:
Over at core-workflow@ we are discussing details of the GitHub and GitLab proposals and one of the worries the GitLab supporters have brought up is that some core developers could flat-out stop contributing if we moved to GitHub. Now I have major doubts that's true as no one has told me that is the case yet after all the time that this workflow change has been discussed, but I would not be doing my due diligence if I didn't check to make sure I truly didn't need to consider this in my final decision.
So, if you would actually *stop* contributing to Python's development if we switched to GitHub, please let me know.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describes-sexism-and-inti...
http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/19/5526574/github-sexism-scandal-julie-ann-ho...
http://www.dailydot.com/technology/julie-ann-horvath-quits-github-sexism-har...
http://readwrite.com/2014/04/24/github-women-reputation-julie-ann-horvath
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/21/github-founder-resigns-after-invest...
I love Python (as I'm sure all core developers do), and I am not over burdened with a sense of my own importance though I do think my contributions have made Python better (PEP 409, PEP 435, PEP 461). However, I cannot and will not be associated with a project that supports GitHub until such time as GitHub becomes a decent place for women to work.
Those links are a year and half old, so if there is current evidence to the contrary I'm interested in seeing it.
If there is not, then it behooves us to act according to our own words claiming support for women and not use GitHUb, perhaps even blogging about our decision and its reasons to apply some pressure to them to affect a change.
I sincerely hope I am not alone in these feelings.
-- ~Ethan~
On 12/15/2015 11:40 AM, Ethan Furman wrote:
I cannot and will not be associated with a project that supports GitHub [...]
Lest anyone accuse me of hypocrisy because I have a GitHub account, it is required for a class I am taking, and will be deleted (or at least go unused) once that class is finished.
My repos are on BitBucket.
-- ~Ethan~
Hello Ethan,
On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 11:40 AM, Ethan Furman ethan@stoneleaf.us wrote:
Those links are a year and half old, so if there is current evidence to the contrary I'm interested in seeing it.
These are the follow-up articles which state that Github Inc has taken some actions to correct the "mistakes" they might have done.
https://github.com/blog/1826-follow-up-to-the-investigation-results https://github.com/blog/2039-adopting-the-open-code-of-conduct
If there is not, then it behooves us to act according to our own words claiming support for women and not use GitHUb, perhaps even blogging about our decision and its reasons to apply some pressure to them to affect a change.
I sincerely hope I am not alone in these feelings.
As you noted, they are more than a year old and re-churning this may not be in our best interest IMHO. It is like ignoring any action the company might have done to correct mistakes (the above blog links).
I am +1 on moving development to Github because of technical reasons. If we have doubts on the culture of the company, it may be a good idea to talk directly to their public relations department or an informal chat with women who currently work at Github and get a firsthand view of the place and not be biased with reports in media, especially the old ones.
Thanks, Senthil
On Dec 15, 2015, at 12:41 PM, Senthil Kumaran wrote:
If we have doubts on the culture of the company, it may be a good idea to talk directly to their public relations department or an informal chat with women who currently work at Github and get a firsthand view of the place and not be biased with reports in media, especially the old ones.
Jono Bacon, a former colleague of mine and former Ubuntu Community Manager is now Director of Community at GitHub. I'd be happy to reach out to him with any of our concerns in this regard.
Cheers, -Barry
On 12/15/2015 12:59 PM, Barry Warsaw wrote:
On Dec 15, 2015, at 12:41 PM, Senthil Kumaran wrote:
If we have doubts on the culture of the company, it may be a good idea to talk directly to their public relations department or an informal chat with women who currently work at Github and get a firsthand view of the place and not be biased with reports in media, especially the old ones.
Jono Bacon, a former colleague of mine and former Ubuntu Community Manager is now Director of Community at GitHub. I'd be happy to reach out to him with any of our concerns in this regard.
I don't know what other concerns there might be, but I think it would be good to collect them and ask Jono about them. If past issues have changed for the better then the more who know the better; likewise, if there are still issues we should be cognizant of them.
-- ~Ethan~
On Dec 15, 2015, at 01:06 PM, Ethan Furman wrote:
I don't know what other concerns there might be, but I think it would be good to collect them and ask Jono about them. If past issues have changed for the better then the more who know the better; likewise, if there are still issues we should be cognizant of them.
If anybody has specific questions they'd like Jono to answer, send them to me off-list in the next few days. I'll compile them and forward them on to Jono. I'll repeat the offer on the workflow mailing list.
Cheers, -Barry
On 12/15/2015 12:41 PM, Senthil Kumaran wrote:
These are the follow-up articles which state that Github Inc has taken some actions to correct the "mistakes" they might have done.
https://github.com/blog/1826-follow-up-to-the-investigation-results https://github.com/blog/2039-adopting-the-open-code-of-conduct
Thank you. It would seem they are at least trying, which is heartening.
I withdraw my objections.
-- ~Ethan~
participants (9)
-
Barry Warsaw -
Brett Cannon -
Ethan Furman -
Jesus Cea -
Neil Schemenauer -
Nick Coghlan -
s.krah -
Senthil Kumaran -
Vinay Sajip