Subject: Re: [bug#76503] [GCD] Migrating repositories, issues, and patches to Codeberg

From: Simon Tournier <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2025 15:15:52 +0100

Hi all,

On Wed, 05 Mar 2025 at 10:39, Ricardo Wurmus <[email-masked]> wrote:

> The difference is that you don't need to configure "git send-email" or
> configure a local msmtp to send email to guix-devel or other mailing
> lists.  For patches sent to guix-patches we recommend configuring "git
> send-email" to avoid garbled patches.
>
> I know from mentoring people that setting up "git send-email" is a
> real hurdle, whereas sending simple emails to participate in
> discussions on a mailing list is not.

While I agree with that about the annoyances of “git send-email”, I also
think that forcing reviewers to have a Codeberg account is a real
hurdle.

Maybe I’ll appear “elitist” but if a person is able to prepare a patch,
then configuring “git send-email” isn’t an issue, IMHO.

Somehow, my opinion on this topic is: we should not focus too much on
the Contributor’s point of view – do not take me wrong, for sure I’m all
for being friendly, welcoming and inclusive; that’s not the point.
Instead, we need to focus on Reviewer’s point of view.

Our main issue: too much contributions and not enough reviewers and not
enough mergers.  Nothing new and the same with most of all Free Software
projects, to my knowledge.  However, we reach a point where we need to
act because merging patches is too much friction; and sadly both sides,
Contributors and Reviewers.

Therefore, for me, what does the forge bring that helps the reviewers?

For now, the only tiny difference I see is about CI.  It’s easier to
automatically build a PR than to automatically extract patches for
building them. 

The first time I met* Guix community, it was on December 2018 in
Paris. Well, I also remember that Chris spoke about Continuous
Integration, patchwork and what Chris was doing at the time.

Over the time Chris did an incredible piece of work.  When we see QA and
all that, that's amazing!  And Ricardo’s initiative with Mumi is also
very nice and helpful – and thanks Arun for nice features!

All that to say, this GCD raises this question: Do we want to put more
effort on CI and QA?  Somehow, improve and/or make various bridges
between QA, CI and guix-patches?  Or do we drop that part?

Cheers,
simon

*first time I met: If I remember correctly, Ricardo you came by
                   night-bus and you took a chocolate cake. <3