Am 2019-02-24 21:03, schrieb Ben Cooksley:
On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 8:31 AM Martin Flöser <mgraess...@kde.org>
wrote:
Am 2019-02-23 10:44, schrieb Ben Cooksley:
> Hi all,
> Based on all of the above we'd like to propose migrating towards
> Gitlab. Comments?
I'm totally honest here: I'm not happy about yet another migration.
This
will be the fifth reviewing toolkit I use for KDE (reviewboard for
svn,
reviewboard for git, gerrit, phabricator and now gitlab). Each of the
transitions was painful for everyone involved and the commit rate to
the
project I was involved suffered from the transitions. As an example
for
the problems: KWin's hacking document still mentions reviewboard:
https://community.kde.org/KWin/Hacking#Submitting_Changes
Please don't over exaggerate the numbers here.
Gerrit was never an official system for reviews, it was something that
was evaluated by a small group and which was never proceeded with as
an official whole-of-KDE solution.
Reviewboard for SVN/Git are basically the same thing (just a different
instance url), so this is only really the third system, not the fifth
You missed the point. What I wrote is that the transitions were painful
- also the very simple transition from svn.reviewboard to
git.reviewboard was painful. That it was the same tool doesn't matter.
It was still a transition, it meant looking at two places, lost reviews,
update to documentation, change of workflow, etc. etc.
Also gerrit was a tool I used for KDE hacking. I wrote it will be the
fifth toolkit for me. That's true for me and I don't over exaggerate any
numbers here.
Please also bear in mind that we've been on Git now for coming up on 9
years (I have mails for git.kde.org starting around June 2010) so
switching systems twice in that time frame as software continues to
mature seems quite reasonable to me.
Please keep also in mind that the git transition took a long time and
started for different projects at different times. That you as sysadmin
had mails going back so long does not mean others as well. I consider it
as a transition too early after Phabricator was praised so much. I was
sure that this would be a solution for the next decade.
I'm not pleased that we want to transit to another solution after just
a
few years. I understand that there is the feeling that our phabricator
solution limits contributions from newcomers. I don't believe that and
are afraid of the long term developers walking away due to the changes
(which is something I saw with every transition). I don't know whether
I
will continue to contribute if I have to relearn the tooling - my time
for KDE is currently very limited. If I have an hour to hack and have
to
spend half the time on how to contribute now, that sucks and lowers
motivation.
If you've worked with Github before then Gitlab is very similar, so
the learning curve shouldn't be too steep.
I haven't worked with github.
Changing the tooling will not solve any of the contribution problems.
Instead we introduce new ones like all documentation going out of
life.
Please consider whether the advantages are really worth it.
Please also see my comments re. Phabricator upstream as to part of the
reason why we're considering this, along with the feedback we received
at Akademy last year.
Well I remember how phabricator was praised for the very responsive
team. That seems to have changed. But who guarantees that gitlab will
continue to be responsive and cooperative? Will we have to switch again
if the team stops to be responsive?
You asked for comments. I gave comment that I'm not pleased about yet
another transition. Please keep that in mind. It means learning and
interrupted workflows for every one. If you have already decided and
don't want anybody to point out that transitions are painful, please
don't ask for comments. Instead say that sysadmins decided. That's at
least honest - your reply gives me the feeling the decision is already
done and negative feedback was not expected. Sorry to feel this way.
Cheers
Martin
