[tz] TZDB patches, UTF-8, and Microsoft Exchange
Brian Inglis
Brian.Inglis at SystematicSw.ab.ca
Sun Dec 4 21:55:05 UTC 2022
On 2022-12-04 12:48, Fred Gleason via tz wrote:
> On Dec 2, 2022, at 17:21, Derick Rethans via tz <tz at iana.org
> <mailto:tz at iana.org>> wrote:
>
>> This problem would go away if you'd except change requests through GitHub's
>> pull request feature.
>
> I for one heartily second this suggestion. While I understand that this can be a
> sensitive issue for some long-time contributors here, given the composition of
> TZDB’s audience (veteran coders plus the occasional technically
> non-sophisticated user), I think anything that simplifies the overall workflow
> while making the process more transparent to non-coders would be a net win.
>
>
>> It's quite a common and modern method to propose changes to open source
>> software, that I'd expect many would already be familiar with.
>
> I agree. The GitHub pull request process has become a sort of _lingua franca_ in
> the code development realm, arguably more so than any other single methodology
> for managing distributed open source development. In that context, the current
> _status quo_ is rather *anti*-user friendly in the sense that many coders, when
> first encountering the TZDB GitHub repo think that they already know how to
> generate and submit patches; only later discovering that they in fact don’t,
> since what is arguably the central workflow metaphor of what makes GitHub useful
> has (seemingly inexplicably) been switched off.
>
> On the basis of the patches I’ve seen go by on this listserv over the past few
> years, it would also seem that “easing/reducing maintenance burden” has become a
> major goal for TZDB. Given that, I would respectfully argue that moving to a
> PR-based workflow would do more towards that end than any number of minor code
> polishing changes.
>
>
> On Dec 2, 2022, at 17:43, Paul Eggert via tz <tz at iana.org <mailto:tz at iana.org>>
> wrote:
>
>> Yes, but GitHub has its own problems. I'd rather stick with email, just as
>> many other projects use email for this sort of thing.
>
> Well, this one at least does. FWIW, none of the other FOSS projects whose dev
> lists I follow use the traditional patches-via-email workflow any more. While by
> no means all of them use GitHub, what they all do use is some sort of system
> that provides automated patch generation/testing/merging along with a GUI option
> that allows non-coder types some level of visibility into the process.
>
>
>> Also, I've been thinking of moving the development repository off GitHub for
>> other reasons, and I don't want to rely on GitHub-specific features.
>
> Would you care to share with us what some of those “other reasons” might be?
At a guess, I'd imagine for a multi-GNU project contributor, even using a
proprietary vendor locked-in (and potentially future deprecated or locked-out)
platform might be an issue (possibly queried only in person or private DM), as
it is for many other open source contributors, where even mentioning GitHub
evokes a spit-blah *NEVER* response, and moving to GH would result in losing
some contributions.
For some open-source projects, GH is used only as a public and backup repo for
their primary dev workflows, as are sv.gnu.org and sv.non-gnu.org in some cases.
A number are using in-house and/or public GitLab instances, and others have
surfaced their email with public-inbox like
https://lore.kernel.org/
where issues and patches can be handled using workflow tools like
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/b4/b4.git
It would be good if the IETF, IANA, and/or ICANN made their email available in
such searchable archives, an area where tz is currently lacking.
--
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada
La perfection est atteinte Perfection is achieved
non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter not when there is no more to add
mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retirer but when there is no more to cut
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
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