Re: [GCD] Migrating repositories, issues, and patches to Codeberg

[Suhail Singh]

Suhail Singh <suhailsingh247@gmail.com> writes:

> Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> ## Workflow
>
> While this section talks in some detail about CI and the merge workflow,
> it leaves unstated what the actual review process would look like (and
> what demands it may or may not make of the reviewers).  Could you please
> elaborate on that?

I gave it some more thought, and I think there is a concern that the
proposal fails to address (unless I missed it, in which case my
apologies for the noise).  IMO this concern ought to be discussed for
individuals to have an informed opinion in favor or against.

Presently, we are faced with a situation where the throughput of patch
submissions is greater than the throughput of the combination of
reviewing and committing patches.  Further, between reviewing and
committing patches, it's the throughput of committing patches that is
the rate limiting step (as evidenced by the, not uncommon, long delay
between the review by a non-committer, and the merge of said patch by a
committer).

The move to codeberg has the potential to alleviate the rate limiting
step (the throughput of committing patches).  This has been discussed.
However, said move also has the potential to reduce the throughput of
reviews.  It's not clear that the number of Guix contributors who
contribute by participating in the review process won't find the web
interface less convenient.  And that this effect won't be greater than
the positive effect of attracting more reviewers.  Finally, it's
possible that the reduction in throughput is so great that it offsets
any gains in commit throughput.

I think that this is a factor that warrants some discussion.  And since
nobody has a crystal ball, it would be prudent to outline what the
mitigation strategy is if the above were to be true.  I.e., say we move
to codeberg, and we find out reviews have dried up, what's the plan to
deal with that possibility?  Somewhat relatedly, is there a world where
email-based reviews (and to a lesser extent, patch submission) could
co-exist with a forge?

-- 
Suhail