Re: [gentoo-dev] GLEP RFC: Third-party contributions

[Michał Górny]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2016 09:42:22 -0400
Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o> wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 27, 2016 at 9:13 AM, Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:
> > On Thu, 27 Oct 2016 07:07:20 -0400
> > Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I think this reflects reality.  You can submit all the patches you
> >> want via bugzilla but it isn't like we punish developers for not
> >> getting around to accepting them, unless they're completely inactive
> >> Gentoo-wide.
> >
> > I disagree here. I dare say that Bugzilla is obligatory for all
> > developers (they get an account there during recruitment, after all).
> > I agree they aren't required to accept patches but if a developer
> > outright ignores all attempts of communication, you know what needs to
> > be done.
> >
>
> Recruit more maintainers or treeclean the package if it is a blocker?
>
> While I don't really care for the whole passive-aggressive thing that
> some seem to enjoy, mere inaction by a volunteer in certain areas is a
> hard problem to deal with, because if they're making positive
> contributions in others it is hard to demand that they make a positive
> contribution in an area that we choose.
>
> I get that being met with silence is highly frustrating, and I've been
> on the receiving end of it.  Still, often the best solution isn't to
> try to force somebody to do things our way, but to try to encourage
> others to join in so that we have somebody to work with who is willing
> to do it our way.
>
> That is of course what this GLEP is all about.
>
> >
> > To be honest, after writing it all down, I started to get the feeling
> > it isn't necessary after all. The initial idea (and what motivation was
> > supposed to mean) was that all previous attempts failed because they
> > either tried to be too specific, force too many style rules or just
> > never got necessary 'global' to reach all affected parties.
> >
> > I'd dare say this GLEP ended up confirming 'third party contributions'
> > are not that special, we don't need special teams to handle them or
> > special rules to cover them.
> >
> > So yes, it would probably be enough to put such a simple statement
> > somewhere. The problem is: where? ;-) GLEP seemed like a
> > straightforward solution to make it global.
> >
>
> I think that is a completely fair question.
>
> I wouldn't be hesitant to strongly promote a specific style,
> especially if it isn't mandatory.  Convention over configuration and
> all that.
>
> As far as promotion goes, I think something on this page might help:
> https://gentoo.org/get-involved/contribute/
>
> Right now that is fairly bugzilla-centric.  I think expanding it to
> offer bugzilla as one option among many could be helpful.  The current
> page doesn't even mention gentoo-proxy-maintainers.
>
> I do think that this is one of the areas where hasufell's concept of
> making the 3rd-party workflow the main workflow could have helped.
> Right now the people with commit rights mostly do things in a way that
> it is awkward to feed 3rd-party contributions into.

You are really going off-topic, you know? If the mailing list goes
quiet for a few days, and Gentoo people start to miss some action, we
can start discussing alternate workflows. I really like the LLVM
project workflow but I doubt people are ready to take in such
a major change.

> So, maybe instead of a GLEP we need something in the style of a
> contributor and committer workflow/guide that work very tightly
> together.  Then we generate some excitement on the committer side of
> that so that people who stick their toes in the water don't have a bad
> experience, and then we promote it to the public.

That was the original idea. However, I wasn't able to figure out who
should be 'responsible' for it. The GLEP had the advantage that it's
really official and Council-approved, so a random developer won't say
'what power does team X have to say about contributions?'

But then, I don't really want to pursue this further. I'll leave it for
others to decide where to put the ideas I've put into words in that
GLEP draft.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny
<http://dev.gentoo.org/~mgorny/>