Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2020 17:13:06 +0100
From: Natanael Copa <ncopa@alpinelinux.org>
To: Rasmus Thomsen <oss@cogitri.dev>
Cc: ~alpine/devel@lists.alpinelinux.org
Subject: Re: Does it make sense to keep ~alpine/aports running?
Message-ID: <20200310170643.7a475808@ncopa-desktop.copa.dup.pw>
In-Reply-To: <24b91bd507e8151d41ac1d9866a4fd7a07febfe0.camel@cogitri.dev>
References: <24b91bd507e8151d41ac1d9866a4fd7a07febfe0.camel@cogitri.dev>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

On Thu, 05 Mar 2020 20:44:23 +0000
Rasmus Thomsen <oss@cogitri.dev> wrote:

> I was wondering if it really makes sense to keep ~alpine/aports and to
> keep allowing users to contribute by sending patches per email.
...

> In my opinion it'd make most sense to just shut down ~alpine/aports and
> require users to make patches on Gitlab, as that'd offer numerous
> advantages:
> 
> * No more conflicts between patches from the ML and Gitlab, users
> rarely check out the ML if they use Gitlab or the other way around
> to see if there are patches around for what they're doing already. This
> wastes contributor's time and demotivates them.

I think this is the key point.

> * Reviewing patches is _way_ nicer on Gitlab compared to the ML IMHO

I think reviewing patches via email is kind of nice. At least I used to
think so.

But I think gitlab (or github) is nicer when there are multiple
iterations. I have problems of keeping track of what patches has been
applied and which has not. Specially if there are a patchset with v2,
v3 patches.

> * We actually have CI on MRs - as mentioned we currently have to
> repost patches on Gitlab for CI, which makes patches on the ML even
> more tedious.

There is build.sr.ht but as mentioned in other emails, infra team does
not have resources or interest to either run two sets of CIs or move
gitlab CI to build.sr.ht.

> * And devs actually use the thing! Most devs just ignore the ML (me
> included) and only review and merge changes that are posted on Gitlab.
> 
> I personally do feel like it's fine to keep the MR for other things
> like user support or the devel list (although that sees very little
> participation, so maybe it's time to switch there too...), but
> ~alpine/aports really doesn't make sense to me anymore.

So, one of the major reasons we kept a patch mailing list was because
there was people who would not contribute via github. I think the
majority of those are ok to contribute via gitlab, so that is not as
big problem nowdays.

I guess it boils down to if we want make it easy for contributors who
don't want sign up in gitlab, or prefers `git send-email` at the
expense of the reviewers. (and contributors who would need check both
mailing list and gitlab if someone else has provided same patch).

I think at this point, we need simplify the reviewing process rather
than simplify the submitting patches, since it currently is a bigger
problem to manage review the incoming patches than not having enough
contributions.

So I think it makes sense to shut down ~alpine/aports. Can we make it
read-only archives for now, and see how it goes? We can re-enable it if
it turns out to be a bad decision.

Carlo, what do you think?

-nc