> I apologize for getting meta and sticking on this point, but I'd like > to ensure we don't place artificial barriers to contributions by > having lengthy conversations and votes inside of an issue tracker.
I'd like to ensure the same: that we don't regulate people who like to use JIRA to have such discussions and force them to instead duplicate them information they'd normally put in there in an email as (which JIRA already does). > > I find the OS/IDE analogy rather weak - the fact that I use Mac OS X, > GMail, or refuse to use Eclipse doesn't impact you in what OS or IDE > you use. I have options to contribute constructively to any > discussions even respecting my choices (and you do yours). However, > the fact that you use JIRA for detailed design discussions and > conversations means that no one else can follow detailed conversations > via email efficiently - and are forced to use JIRA. Umm, I'm sorry I find that analogy rather weak. JIRA isn't the Death Star. It's not something that prevents anyone from doing anything. It's simply a user interface around discussions, the same way that an email client is the same. All Apache committers can have JIRA just like they have Apache (or non-Apache) email. All JIRA interactions are sent to the list. There is no difference between those interactions then email -- in fact, on the contrary they are * in fact * email. Arguably email with annotations (just like I just used * to emphasize something). > > The fundamental issue is that you can't follow or contribute to a > lengthy conversation in JIRA without using JIRA. If you actually > tried to follow along via email, first off, you can't reply to issues > via email. Furthermore, JIRA's emails don't have proper references or > threading, so you just get a bazillion individual non-related posts. Looks good in mod_mbox to me? http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/oodt-commits/201012.mbox/browser > In Gmail, since it has no other clues, it does try to group all > comments from one author together - so it means that I see all of > Brian's comments on an issue in one "conversation" and all of your > comments in a completely separate "conversation". It's very very > painful to follow as I see Brian's responses to you first without > seeing your comments first. My head hurts trying to follow along - > ugh. Uh-huh: the real problem here is Gmail! > > Email is a great common denominator that lets people use the tools and > workflow they desire. JIRA doesn't. It raises the bar significantly > for contributing to discussions. Again, JIRA is acceptable for issue > tracking, but please let's not make it the place where conversations > and votes are held. -- justin I agree with you mostly but there are a lot of things that we key off JIRA (e.g., our CHANGES.txt file for one) where I really appreciate as a user of the software having nice detailed discussion when I got to follow the changes in a particular release. That's just me though and I maintain that you and I can go back and forth but what it really comes down to is whether you prefer vi or whether I prefer Eclipse. :) Cheers, Chris ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Chris Mattmann, Ph.D. Senior Computer Scientist NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena, CA 91109 USA Office: 171-266B, Mailstop: 171-246 Email: [email protected] WWW: http://sunset.usc.edu/~mattmann/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Adjunct Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
