GNOME 40 work should be done on Savannah (was: Re: GNOME 40)

[Mark H Weaver]

Christopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net> writes:

> Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:
>> How is it more flexible than a "wip-*" branch on Savannah?
>
> I wouldn't use quite the same words as Léo, but from my perspective,
> controlling access to particular branches (master, staging,
> core-updates, ...) on Savannah is a good thing, as it reduces risk.

I don't see much risk here.  You're talking about a 'wip' branch that
almost no one will be using anyway.  We already trust all Guix
committers with our master branch, which directly and immediately
affects any Guix user who updates their system at the right time.

If someone commits something inappropriate to a 'wip' branch, we can all
easily see that they did so, investigate more closely, and optionally
revert the changes.

Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> writes:

> On Sun, 2021-03-28 at 16:48 -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
>> How is it more flexible than a "wip-*" branch on Savannah?
>
> Because as the GNU Guix project we have no control on the forge to
> catter it to our own needs,

This sounds theoretical.  Concretely, what needs do you have that aren't
being met by Savannah?

> because there is bureaucracy involved with approving new committers so
> they can work on wip branches (shouldnt be necessary).

I don't understand this.  It seems to me the opposite.

If I want to contribute to this external 'wip' branch, I need to arrange
for access.  Ditto for any other Guix committer who wants to work on it.
That's added "bureaucracy" entailed by your approach that would not be
needed for 'wip' branches on Savannah.

On the other hand, maybe your point is that you'd like to allow direct
commit access to this 'wip' branch by people who don't have commit
access to Savannah.  If that's the goal, I find that objectionable,
because when this branch is finally merged, all of those commits will
suddenly get dumped into Savannah.  That increases "risk" from my
perspective.

I actively do not want commits getting into Savannah without an existing
Guix committer taking responsibility for them.  Your approach
effectively creates a loophole for non-committers to potentially
introduce many commits into the official Guix repository in a way that
is likely to not get adequate oversight.

* * *

I'd strongly prefer for this work to be done on Savannah.  If this were
a fringe branch of marginal interest, it might make sense to have it
elsewhere, but this is core Guix desktop work that's likely to be of
interest to a large segment (plausibly a majority) of our community.
IMO, it belongs in our official git repository.

Thoughts?

      Mark