Better tools for kernel developers

Posted Feb 8, 2020 23:37 UTC (Sat) by Conan_Kudo (subscriber, #103240)
In reply to: Better tools for kernel developers by mricon
Parent article: Better tools for kernel developers

Similarly, we hope to add an alternative frontend to GitGitGadget that wouldn't be tied to Github and can be used with any git hosting service -- such that anyone who is able to host a git tree somewhere on the net can provide an URL, a branch, and a cover letter to have the service automatically submit a patch series to the proper location for review.

This is literally one of the things that Pagure tries to offer. It doesn't exactly fit the Linux kernel's requirements right now, since it doesn't know how to process MAINTAINERS and send the message to the correct subsystem mailing lists based on what the diff includes. Nor does it have a mode for sending it as a traditional patch series with a cover letter + diffstat based on the PR description. But Pagure could be easily extended to provide that functionality.

But being most of the way there to supporting that, while being completely Free Software (GPLv2+) and supporting an open data model (all project data in Pagure is stored as git repositories and can be manipulated with Git) makes it a worthy option to consider and contribute to make it work for the kernel, right?

Better tools for kernel developers

Posted Feb 12, 2020 14:25 UTC (Wed) by spwhitton (subscriber, #71678) [Link] (2 responses)

Sourcehut also has this feature.

Better tools for kernel developers

Posted Feb 12, 2020 14:39 UTC (Wed) by Conan_Kudo (subscriber, #103240) [Link] (1 responses)

The problem with Sourcehut is that it provides no alternative workflow for submitting changes. It re-enforces the email-based workflow that myself and many others here have said is not workable.

Sourcehut itself does improve things from the "dumb" email model (such as basically integrating Patchwork's functionality), but itself does not provide any reasonable workflow improvements.

Better tools for kernel developers

Posted Feb 12, 2020 21:29 UTC (Wed) by milesrout (subscriber, #126894) [Link]

What you are saying about the email-based workflow that git was designed from the start to be used with is simply, factually, objectively wrong. Saying that it "isn't workable" isn't just incorrect, it's ignorant.

However if you put even the most basic research into sourcehut you'd know that the major goal of the website is to build online web-based contribution tools that use the "unworkable" email workflow underneath.