[python-committers] Would anyone STOP contributing to Python if we used GitHub?

[Brett Cannon]

On Tue, 15 Dec 2015 at 08:58 Vinay Sajip <vinay_sajip at 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.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-committers/attachments/20151215/33ec52db/attachment.html>