Progress on GitHub and alternatives

[Scott Lovenberg]

On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 6:27 PM, Andrew Bartlett <abartlet at samba.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 2015-09-08 at 12:48 +1200, Andrew Bartlett wrote:
>> On Mon, 2015-09-07 at 12:35 +1200, Andrew Bartlett wrote:
>> > On Fri, 2015-09-04 at 11:07 -0700, Jeremy Allison wrote:
>> > > On Fri, Sep 04, 2015 at 06:12:11PM +1200, Andrew Bartlett wrote:
>> > > > On Tue, 2015-08-18 at 17:28 +1200, Andrew Bartlett wrote:
>> > > > > G'Day,
>> > > > >
>> > > > > For the past while it has concerned me that we need a better
>> > > > > review
>> > > > > system and that we should have a mirror and be accepting
>> > > > > contributions
>> > > > > via github.
>> > > > >
>> > > > > To be clear, github isn't really a review system, but it has
>> > > > > a
>> > > > > massive
>> > > > > user community that we want to try to better connect with.
>> > > > >
>> > > > > The plan is to make every github pull request turn into a
>> > > > > mail
>> > > > > on
>> > > > > the
>> > > > > mailing list, so that we keep our mailing-list based
>> > > > > workflow.
>> > > >
>> > > > > The URL for the official Samba Team repo is:
>> > > > > https://github.com/samba-team/samba
>> > > >
>> > > > I've done this now, and we have some test notification scripts
>> > > > sending mail to testlist.
>> > > > You can see how this looks at
>> > > > https://lists.samba.org/archive/testlist/2015
>> > > > -September/thread.html
>> > > > It needs a lot of work to be really nice, but it is a start.
>> > > >  Pull
>> > > > request on
>> > > > https://github.com/abartlet/gh-mailinglist-notifications
>> > > >  are
>> > > > very, very welcome.
>> > > > I'm also trying to get another tool working:
>> > > > https://github.com/abartlet/pull-request-mailer
>> > > > This will post patches to the list, but for now it times out
>> > > > trying
>> > > > to
>> > > > clone the samba repo, so needs some love.
>> > >
>> > > Great work Andrew, thanks for doing this !
>> >
>> > I have both scripts up and running.  What I need now is some
>> > feedback
>> > from you and the rest of the community.
>> >
>> > I need to know which of the scripts (or both) to run long term.
>> >  Look
>> > here:
>> >
>> > https://lists.samba.org/archive/testlist/2015-September/thread.html
>> >
>> > and tell me what you like, and what you don't.  If you want to see
>> > the
>> > actual mail output, the subscription page is here:
>> >
>> > https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/testlist
>> >
>> > I also need folks to push their own patches to github, make pull
>> > requests and comment on the workflow.
>> >
>> > Currently, the service running git-format-patch (pull-request
>> > -mailer)
>> > *will* automatically CC mails to those listed as From and Signed
>> > -off
>> > -by
>> > in patches in pull requests.  Let me know if that would be an
>> > issue.
>> >
>> > The other script, gh-mailinglist-notifications attaches the patches
>> >
>> > to
>> > just one mail, which I understand may be a preference.
>> >
>> > Finally, we need to figure out how we will communicate back to the
>> > author, as sadly replies to these mails won't make it back to
>> > github.
>> > Either a few of us become members of the project and get the direct
>> > pull request mails as well (that can be replied to), or we can
>> > leave
>> > pull-request-mailer to write a message like this one
>> > https://github.com/samba-team/samba/pull/7
>>
>> Depending on the feedback, I'll enable mails to samba-technical in a
>> day or two, and then my plan, again depending on feedback it to
>> announce on samba-announce that we are now accepting pull requests on
>> github.
>>
>> The need to send in a Developers Certificate of Origin (if working
>> for
>> a company) and to add signed-off-by lines will still apply.
>>
>> We should also update our README file, as this is what github users
>> see
>> first.
>
> I've now pointed the script at samba-technical.  New pull requests will
> mail our list here.
>
> I've chosen to use only my updated gh-mailinglist-notifications script,
> not the one that uses git-send-email, as our preference is for attached
> patches, not one-patch-per-mail.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Andrew Bartlett
>

I submitted a patch through GH this morning; other than my usual
issues with git (I'll not start that rant here and now if only to keep
things civil), it worked flawlessly and the comment that I posted came
through without issue as well.  Well done!

I do, however, have a question regarding workflow; I assume non-Team
contributors still need 2 Team member sign offs.  Is there a way to
make this clear on GH that all pull requests will remain pending until
they have two sign offs without a NACK?  Also, how is the
"reviewed-by" system working?  I'm thinking the easiest way would be
in the comment section of the pull request (it'll go to the mailing
list for archival), but that would require nearly all Samba team
members to have a GH login and troll the pull request queue which
isn't completely unreasonable, but it is Yet Another Process that
drags down productivity.

I'm almost of mind to say that someone should curate if the stream of
commits from GH becomes steady.  I would volunteer to do this, but I'm
afraid I don't have a deep enough knowledge of all the various layers
of Samba to be of much use in picking out and prioritizing the pull
queue.

Most likely I'll have more feedback as we go through merging my pull
request, but so far it's been relatively seamless and slightly easier
than git-format-patch/git-email-patch for a simple git feature branch.

-- 
Peace and Blessings,
-Scott.