Tim Cross <theophil...@gmail.com> writes:
> ian martins <ia...@jhu.edu> writes: > >> On Wed, Apr 21, 2021 at 3:45 PM Tim Cross <theophil...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> [Noise] >> >> Timothy said there were 25 patches without response and the list goes back >> six months, so we're only talking about 50 emails per year. > That assumes there is a single 'owner' who accepts the responsibility to > respond to every patch submitted. That isn't the situation with open > source projects where people volunteer their time. > > Having someone respond to the author of a patch and provide some > meaningful feedback would be great, but I don't see how that can happen > in a project which is already stretched and with limited resources. > There has already been multiple messages requesting additional help and > for volunteers willing to put in the time needed to maintain parts of > org mode. Adding to that workload isn't going to help. As far as I know the only call for help maintaining Org has been with babel packages. Otherwise you would have seen me volunteering :P I'd like to do more if I get the opportunity. > [snip] > > I think you can classify patches into 3 basic types - > > 1. [Fixes] > > 2. [Extending existing stuff] > > 3. [New stuff] > > Asking volunteers to respond to patches of type 2 and 3 within some > nominated time period is probably unreasonable. I'd like to suggest that a response can just be "We've got your patch, it will take some time to go through and see ow it interacts with Org". > It also runs the danger of discouraging people from stepping up to > volunteer to help maintain parts of org. TBH I don't see how being asked to provide the odd cursory response would be that off-putting. 50 currently patches needing a response per year / say 3 maintainers ~= cursory quick email every 2-4 weeks on average just to say a patch has been seen, thanks for submitting it, and maybe that it might take a while to be reviewed. > This is why I think a better approach would be to provide more details > and explanation on patch submission which can help set the > expectations for the patch submitter and provide some guidance on what > to do if they want to encourage/ask for feedback. I think this would be a very good idea, I'll say a bit more below where you mention Worg. > This is also part of why I think patches of type 3 and possibly many > type 2 patches should be initially released as separate 'add on' > packages and made available via gitlab/github/melpa by the individual > responsible for writing the patch. The author would then be able to see > how useful/popular/desired their patch is, be able to ask for feedback > and be able to get issue/bug reports to refine their work. This could be > viewed as an 'incubator' like process. If such an enhancement/extension > turns out to be very popular or demanded by the org community, it could > then be migrated into either org core or the proposed org contrib > package (by which time, it would likely be more mature and stable than > it was when initially developed). It also has the advantage of not > impacting existing org users who are not interested in the > enhancement/extension. For an org user, little is more frustrating than > an enhancement/extension which results in them having to either modify > their workflow or update their often large repository of org documents. I think volume of email replies saying "I'd like this" is a bad measure for a few reasons. (1) I get the sense there's a fairly high degree of tacit approval, (2) I've seen the same idea presented simply at different times get very different responses based on how the initial replies reframed/directed the discussion. Additionally, if people who like it can "just use it", a patch may be well-liked and used a lot but not have many peoples speaking in support of it in the ML. In other words, I think that such a system could be too fickle. I suspect some good patches will easily "fall through the cracks" with such a method. I can think of a several merged patches which I consider a good idea which would not fare well under such a system. Then there's another concern if you're modifying parts of Org's internals --- they can be tweaked in Org, and then the overridden methods can cause errors in a number of ways. I know this very well, as I do this sort of thing in a few places in my config, e.g. I was affected by a change in org--mks-read-key. Is a patch author going to be interested in maintaining their patch in the hope that it one day gets merged with Org? This seems like a bit of a stretch to me. > If we were to provide a detailed explanation on how to contribute bug > fixes, enhancements and extensions on the worg site, contributors will > know what is required, will be able to set their expectations in -line > with how things work and have increased clarity regarding the structure > of the org mode project etc. > > I would be willing to start drafting such a page if the community > thought this would be worthwhile and be prepared to assist and assuming > those responsible for maintenance agree. What I draft would be a > starting point only and would require input to ensure it does represent > what the community and maintainers believe is the right direction to > take. Fantastic! I think such an entry would be a big improvement, and I hope that such an addition would help prevent contributors from feeling surprised/disappointed. I think a short entry on this may also be a good idea for orgmode.org/contribute.html. -- Timothy
