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Hello, everyone. |
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The current workflow for handling github pull requests is at least |
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suboptimal. Handling pull requests takes a fair effort from the few |
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developers contributing there, and the progress is often stalled by |
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package maintainers which are either unresponsive or not registered on |
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github at all. That's why I'd like to get your ideas on how we could |
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improve the workflow. |
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Current workflow |
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================ |
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Let's summarize the current workflow first. Right now, there's a few |
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Gentoo developers who actively monitor pull requests on gentoo/gentoo |
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repository. Those developers review incoming pull requests and help |
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submitters get their contributions in shape. Some of those developers |
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also try to 'CC' (@-mention) package maintainers to get their attention |
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on the pull request. |
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Sadly, @-mentioning sucks for a few reasons: |
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1. Many of the Gentoo developers have different nicknames on GitHub. |
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Some developers don't even set their real names which makes them even |
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harder to find. |
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2. Teams can be created only by repository 'owners' (which pretty much |
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is equivalent of Infra). Which practically means I'm the only person |
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migrating teams (projects, herds) to GitHub. |
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3. GitHub notifications are not very reliable. Some developers get only |
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some of them via mail, some don't. And some simply don't care. |
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4. Some developers openly refuse to work with contributors via GitHub. |
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Proxying them manually is not really productive. |
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Potential solution: bi-dir github <=> bugzilla integration |
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========================================================== |
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My current idea would be pretty much that: |
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1. a new dedicated Gentoo bug would be automatically created for every |
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pull request on github, |
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2. all comments from github would be automatically copied to bugzie. |
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All bugzie comments would be automatically copied to github, |
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3. resolving the bug would automatically close the relevant pull |
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request. |
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This way, all pull requests can be assigned to package maintainers in |
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Bugzilla without having to resort to GitHub user or team names. All |
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involved parties would get more reliable Bugzilla notification mails. |
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They could choose to either use the provided URLs to discuss the pull |
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request on GitHub, or discuss it directly on Bugzilla, whichever is |
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more convenient to them. |
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The additional Bugzilla load should be manageable, though we may want |
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to employ some kind of rate limiting in case someone though it'd funny |
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to spam our bugzilla via spamming github. |
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Problems: |
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- handling line comments (probably a Bugzie comment with quoted code |
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snippet), |
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- handling comment edits and removals, |
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- some people will get double mail for each comment, |
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- extra bugs for existing issues (we shouldn't really try to reuse |
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existing bugs for this). |
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What are your thoughts? Any other proposals? |
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-- |
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Best regards, |
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Michał Górny |
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<http://dev.gentoo.org/~mgorny/> |
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