[ClusterLabs Developers] [RFC] Time to migrate authoritative source forge elsewhere?

[Kristoffer Grönlund]

Jan Pokorný <jpokorny at redhat.com> writes:

> On 07/06/18 08:48 +0200, Kristoffer Grönlund wrote:
>> Jan Pokorný <jpokorny at redhat.com> writes:
>>> But with the latest headlines on where that site is likely headed,
>>> I think it's a great opportunity for us to possibly jump on the
>>> bandwagon inclined more towards free (as in freedom) software
>>> principles.
>>> 
>>> Possible options off the top of my head:
>>> - GitLab, pagure: either their authoritative sites or self-hosted
>>> - self-hosted cgit/whatever
>>> 
>>> It would also allow us to reconsider our workflows, e.g. using gerrit
>>> for patch review queue (current silent force-pushes is a horrible
>>> scheme!).
>>> 
>> My general view is that I also feel (and have felt) a bit uneasy about
>> free software projects depending so strongly on a proprietary
>> service. However, unless self-hosting, I don't see how f.ex. GitLab is
>> much of an improvement
>
> Open-core business approach aside as perhaps necessary downside at
> these scales, the difference is crucial: Community Edition is open
> source, anyone can host it individually, which is what enabled
> both Debian and GNOME to consider it's usage (became a reality
> for the latter: https://gitlab.gnome.org/explore/groups,
> https://www.gnome.org/news/2018/05/gnome-moves-to-gitlab-2/)
>
> Feature-wise:
> https://wiki.debian.org/Alioth/GitNext/GitLab
> https://wiki.debian.org/Alioth/GitNext
> https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/DevelopmentInfrastructure/FeatureMatrix
>
>> (Pagure might be a different story, but does it offer a comparable
>> user experience?) in that regard, and anything hosted on "public"
>> cloud is basically the same. ;)
>
> Pagure has the benefit you can influence it relatively easily, as
> I directly attested :-)
>

So GitLab has a problem that AFAIK even GitHub didn't have, where
certain crucial features are only in the enterprise edition - though
they did announce the special allowance for open source projects the
other day which I don't know the details of.

And of course GitLab risks being acquired not by Microsoft but whoever
else, so again, not sure how much it improves. Unless self-hosting that
is.

Pagure has the benefit of being written in Python which I'm comfortable
with so yeah, maybe we can fix any problems with it ;)

>> crmsh used to be hosted at GNU Savannah, which is Free with a capital F,
>> but the admin experience, user experience and general discoverability in
>> the world at large all left something to be desired.
>> 
>> In regard to workflows, if everyone agrees, we should be able to improve
>> that without moving. For example, if all changes went through pull
>> requests, there is a "required reviews" feature in github. I don't know
>> if that is something everyone want, though.
>> 
>> https://help.github.com/articles/enabling-required-reviews-for-pull-requests/
>
> AFAIK this doesn't address the qualitative complaint I have.  It makes
> for a very poor experience when there's no readily available way to
> observe evolution of particular patchsets, only to waste time of the
> reviewer or contribute to oversights ("I'll skip this part I am sure
> I reviewed already, if there was a generational diff, I'd have a look,
> but the review is quite a pain already, I'll move on").
> No, setting up a bot to gradually capture work in progress is not
> a solution.  And pull-request-per-patchset-iteration sounds crazy
> considering this count sometimes goes pretty high.
>

I'll confess that I have no experience with Gerrit or the Github
required reviews, and I don't really know how they differ. :)

>
> In the short term, I'd suggest concentrating on the two points I raised:
> - good discipline regarding commit messages
> - more systemic approach to release tarballs if possible
>

Both of these are generally good suggestions, I agree that we should
make an effort regarding commit messages. On the other hand, there is a
balance between having good commit messages and lowering the threshold
of contribution from outside developers.

Cheers,
Kristoffer

> -- 
> Poki
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-- 
// Kristoffer Grönlund
// kgronlund at suse.com