@kevingranade @jwildeboer The issue is that most FOSS projects are underfunded, understaffed, overworked or its devs/maintainers on the brink of burn out or - most likely - all at the same time. Having more contributors and especially retaining them is crucial, so it's not always easy to say "please, more contributors" and then shun people away with "yes but not by changing our contributor workflow". If we keep hearing from different people we lost potential contributions because the contribution workflow was unacceptable to them, we have to decide whether the loss of their theoretical contribution was worth it. I don't have the answer.
Posts
-
In the olden days, a FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) project typically had: -
In the olden days, a FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) project typically had:@lclapp @jwildeboer
I re-read again and I think I just went on a tangent very fast.I think what triggered it was "young people simply never experienced the olden ways. Maybe they want to explore them a bit" part of the toot. I shared my experience with a few very vocal - assumed - young people trying to make/force projects to use the workflow they are used to.
I then provided my unasked-for opinion on those topics and basically started the typical flame war on git forges and contribution methods, like one could do with the ol' vim/emacs "debate". My apologies. I hope this part of the thread I started dies out soon
-
In the olden days, a FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) project typically had:@jwildeboer well... it is **a** workflow... which has nothing in comparison to mailing list based contribution.
GitHub/GitLab's PR workflow is an absolute disaster/nightmare for per-commit/patch review. Gerrit does that a bit better with patchsets but it gets difficult to read pretty quickly, even with topics.
GitLab/GitHub is just NOT necessarily compatible with some project's workflow.
I actually wrote a multiple pages long email on why no GH/GL for Yocto a while back, maybe I should put it in an article so it's easier to explain everything instead of being limited to a few 100s of characters at once
-
In the olden days, a FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) project typically had:@jwildeboer I have contributed with Gerrit, GitLab/GitHub and mailing lists. Nothing works 100%. Every workflow is broken in some way and it's just always in the way.
It's just that when one person is used to one workflow, they learned to live with those and it hurts to see how you work now not work in another workflow.
I for myself have given up on something that's nice to use and I'm just internally complaining at everything ol' grumpy man yelling at the clouds like you said
-
In the olden days, a FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) project typically had:I'm still in my early thirties but I think I was probably one of the last generations where GitHub was not in basic monopoly for anything-git. At university it was still a decision which to use and some were still using Dropbox
So I think it was less of an issue back then, because not EVERYTHING was on GitHub. Now it gets more difficult to get people to do a bit more effort to contribute, is my feeling. -
In the olden days, a FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) project typically had:@jwildeboer I've been contributing/following a few big projects that only use mailing list based contributions (Yocto, U-Boot bootloader, Linux kernel, libcamera, Buildroot). The last few years we've seen a lot of people voicing their discontent at that workflow and requesting we do everything with GitHub/GitLab "or else you will never get a contribution from me".
So I am not sure those young people are that interested in that old workflow.
-
In the olden days, a FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) project typically had:re: IRC with no history. Most of the IRC chans I'm in actually have public archives that are almost instant. I have my weechat loading the 1000 last messages from the chan (when I was connected, so that's obviously not perfect).