On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 10:44 AM, Corbin Simpson
On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 10:33 AM, Glyph
wrote: On Nov 14, 2011, at 6:55 AM, Tim Allen wrote:
It's very well to say "make git mirror, push to Github, get new contributors", but I think there's a social impedance mismatch here that's going to cause problems, or at least make people wary because Twisted's Github project behaves weirdly and differently from other Github projects they're used to.
You're right, of course, but lots of other projects (Django comes to mind) have a Github presence without using Github or Git as their primary development tool. See here: https://github.com/django. We already have https://github.com/twisted, it's just broken; despite the brokenness it has 14 watchers and 5 forks _anyway_, so clearly people want to use it. This is definitely worse than having a mirror that was updated and working correctly.
I've not forgotten that I have/had Twisted commit access, and coming back to help on a more regular basis is definitely on my list of things to do, although it's pushed down a fair way at the moment. However, even "volunteer for Twisted" was right at the top of the list, I'd be a mug to sign up for such an open-ended responsibility. :)
Welcome to open source. It's all a never-ending thankless slog :-). Really the most important thing here though is just to get the automatic mirroring initially set up, not the never-ending ambassadorial work. That way git users wouldn't _need_ elaborate instructions as to what to clone and how; if we just say "get twisted from github" and have that automatically updated it would be easier for everyone.
JP asked me to say something, so...
I come from FreeDesktop. We have a git-driven development process which doesn't depend on Github. There is a cgit (http://hjemli.net/git/cgit/about/) instance running on fd.o (http://cgit.freedesktop.org/) which covers everybody's personal and project repos.
The contribution process is simple and straightforward. Patches are sent in through the project mailing lists. People can also send patches through auxiliary channels like pastebins and IRC or the Bugzilla, although that's discouraged. When contributors become prolific enough, they can apply for account access, which lets them host repos on fd.o through the magic of userdirs. Code is meritocratic and community-based; when in doubt, a committer can ask for code review. It varies from project to project; fd.o is a *big* umbrella. Branches are very common for contested or complex changes; look at e.g. mesa/mesa for an example of
Boy, thanks Gmail. I really appreciated that. Anyway, mesa/mesa has dozens upon dozens of branches. Just like Twisted. It works well. So, Github adds *zero* fun to this. Its issue tracker is roughly as unfun as Bugzilla. Pull requests are frustrating; I find myself just pulling their code using standard git tools and ignoring the auto-merge tool. I don't really enjoy having messages sent to me *through* Github when we could just use email, like civilized people. I view Github as a source of bandwidth and space to avoid having to host my numerous personal repositories on a personal server. It's a convenience and crutch. TM is not short of resources; there certainly could be a git.tm.com or cgit.tm.com and userdir-powered repositories. Admittedly, this is at odds with the current direction towards LP and Bazaar, but I think it's a lot better than letting us rely on Github. ~ C.
-- When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? ~ Keynes
Corbin Simpson
--
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? ~ Keynes
Corbin Simpson