Using pull requests on Aeolus

Tomas Sedovic tsedovic at redhat.com
Tue Aug 7 11:28:26 UTC 2012


On 08/06/2012 10:59 PM, Matt Wagner wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> Don't throw any tomatoes just yet! We've been going back and forth about
> using pull requests on GitHub for a long time. I'd like to propose that
> we slowly try an experiment. We've had a few outside contributions come
> in through pull requests, and it's worked just fine. At the same time,
> there are people who are more comfortable with sending patches to the
> list. So, even though it seems like it would be nice to have everyone
> work the same way, it seems like the two options aren't mutually
> exclusive.
>
> I'm proposing that we allow people who want to use pull requests to try
> it out. Send pull requests, and other people who want to try pull
> requests can review them. If you don't like pull requests, don't use
> them, and someone will review and push like we do today.  If you're on
> the fence, you can try it out, or not.
>
> I don't love that this would cause us to split patch discussion across
> two places, but I think it's worth it as an experiment. I think it will
> help us iron out any kinks, and experiment with whether this is
> something we want to go forward with. I don't think forcing everyone to
> switch to pull requests (especially overnight) is a good idea, nor is
> ignoring the subject because it's controversial. This gets things
> moving, and I hope it will be like our Fedora vs. upstream gem thing,
> where trying to support both ends up making us more robust, versus
> needlessly distracting us.
>
> I'd like to give this a try. Would anyone care to join me?
>
> -- Matt
>

It's probably worth noting that at least three Aeolus-related projects 
do use the GitHub pull-request model: Image Factory[1], Oz[2] and Image 
Management Engine[3].

I like the proposition. Forcing everyone over without proper evaluation 
would be silly but I do think that sending patches to the list is far 
from perfect solution.

Especially for new contributors who are not used to that form of 
collaboration.

While we're at it, what about proper git (as oposed to GitHub) pull 
requests? That is, you have a publicly readable repo (on GitHub or 
elsewhere) and when you want someone to review and merge your changes 
you send them the link to the repo and the branch name to pull.

If I remember correctly, that was the modus operandi for which git was 
invented.

It provides a nice balance between splitting the conversation about the 
patches (github and mailing list) whilst still being reasonably simple 
to use (it adds about one additional step on each side compared to 
GitHub pull requests).

Thomas

[1]: https://github.com/aeolusproject/imagefactory
[2]: https://github.com/clalancette/oz
[3]: https://github.com/aeolus-incubator/image-management-engine




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