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

[Rich Freeman]

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.

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.

-- 
Rich