Re: Best practices to refresh patches

[Jonathan Perkin <jperkin%joyent.com@localhost>]

* On 2020-05-10 at 15:53 BST, Jesus Cea wrote:

> For me would be trivial to send patches to this mailing list, but it
> was suggested yesterday that they would be easily overlooked.

It's probably not the best choice, but I guess my overall point is
that if it's the difference between us getting a good patch or not
then we'd prefer the patch and put up with some noise on the list.

> I just learned that I could submit a mailman upgrade using WIP
> repository (I just requested commit access) or just doing a pull request
> in github, something I don't entirely understand since the GIT mirror is
> documented as a "read only" mirror or the canonical CVS real thing:
> <https://github.com/NetBSD/pkgsrc> "Automatic conversion of the NetBSD
> pkgsrc CVS module, use with care".

We can't merge pull requests like in a normal git repository, but
having a pull request still allows us to:

 - Track incoming patches

 - Pull the patch trivially for testing (this point is the main reason
   I prefer them, rather than having to dig things out of email or
   GNATS)

 - Discuss the proposed change with the submitter

 - Provide a familiar interface for newer developers

> As I understand that, Joyent has a github pkgsrc repository I can do
> pull requests to and "magically" somebody else will take care of my PR
> and commit it to the master CVS.
> 
> Could I use it to push an upgrade to mailman package?

I'm the only one who monitors that repository, so yes in theory, but
in practise I only have time to handle things that are specific to the
OS that I support, so what will likely happen is it'll sit there until
I have time to look at it, whereas if you sent it through official
channels then there are 100 or so people who can look at it and merge.

> > We should at least have something though, if someone is able to
> > come up with the right wording.
> 
> For a newcomer, would be useful to have some guidelines of how to
> contribute easily, low friction, tiny learning curve, to whom talk
> about this, maybe some mentorship.

Yeh agreed, someone just needs to do it ;)

-- 
Jonathan Perkin  -  Joyent, Inc.  -  www.joyent.com