Re: [Caml-list] Moving ocaml to github (as well)

[Gabriel Scherer <gabriel.scherer@gmail.com>]

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I understand that this is a matter of "perception" that relies on
subjective aspects, but I would like to point out that, objectively, there
is not much difference between a github-style workflow and what currently
happens for "small contribution" (one-shot patches).

Probably the most common workflow on github is approximately as follows:
  (1) clone the github repository
  (2) get it to compile by following whatever instruction (OCaml has an
INSTALL file)
  (3) do your change, compile again and test
  (4) fork the github repository (some peopele do that at point (1)), push
your changes, submit a pull request

By comparison, my current OCaml workflow is as follows:
  (1) clone the github repository
  (2) identical
  (3) identical
  (4) use "git format-patch HEAD~1" to get a patch, submit it on mantis
(New Issue, upload a file)
       (recently some people just provide a link to the commit on their
github or wherever and it works just as well)

I understand that github provides an homogeneous experience so that users
don't have to wonder about what the workflow is, and that OCaml users may
need more explicit information about how to contribute (we can work on
that). I'm a bit surprised that an expert user that is a long-time
contributor on the bugtracker, such as Markus, would perceive a difference
in difficulty/welcome-ness here.



On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 4:53 PM, Markus Mottl <markus.mottl@gmail.com>wrote:

> The reason why the "massive influx of developers" hasn't happened may
> be that making small contributions is perceived as more costly when
> the authoritative repository is not on Github.  Most contributors only
> make small contributions.  If you make large and/or frequent
> contributions, the cost may seem negligible as you adjust to the
> "indirect" workflow.  At least what concerns me, I might have
> submitted a tiny patch here or there, but felt that the development
> model is not open enough for small or less important contributions so
> I didn't bother.  That's why I'd also love to see the OCaml team go
> "distributed", preferably either Git (github) or Mercurial
> (Bitbucket).
>
> Regards,
> Markus
>
> On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 9:07 AM, Richard W.M. Jones <rich@annexia.org>
> wrote:
> > And:
> >
> > (3) To all intents and purposes, OCaml is already on github, ie:
> > https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml .  So the massive influx of developers
> > should have already happened.
> >
> > Rich.
> >
> > --
> > Richard Jones
> > Red Hat
> >
> > --
> > Caml-list mailing list.  Subscription management and archives:
> > https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list
> > Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
> > Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs
>
>
>
> --
> Markus Mottl        http://www.ocaml.info        markus.mottl@gmail.com
>

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