[kde-community] What is a GitHub pull request exactly?

[Eike Hein]

On 09/19/2015 08:43 PM, Kevin Krammer wrote:
> Well, the github side review will make the job of the KDE contributor who 
> brings the patch into KDE a lot easier, because when they put the patch up for 
> review as "their" contribution, most of the things that the contributor knew 
> about will already have been fixed.

No, it won't make it easier. It will busy up KDE contributors
with process snags instead of actual work - now they don't
just have to review, they also have to file requests for work
not their own. It makes stepping up to becoming a regular
contributor less desirable, because it means taking on duties
like this.

The purpose of code review tools is to facilitate review by
making the process sufficiently tenable. Chaining two of them
and creating additional work items does not aid in that
purpose.

It'll also create social tensions of various kinds:

* Developers not participating in GitHub review and only
  seeing a patch once it makes it to Phab will feel
  pressured to accept something because part of the
  discussion has already happened elsewhere, vastly in-
  creasing the conviction required to don the cap and
  baton of the Bad Cop at that point.

* Developers will have opinions on whether it's OK for
  other developers to tell requestees to use Phab next
  time. This issue won't die down. (This would go doubly
  so if people keep pretending opt-in is viable; Laszlo
  raised an excellent point by saying he foresees growing
  tired of explaining why he won't opt-in for years to
  come.)

Really, the only way we can enable GitHub for code
review is if we can work up a community consensus
that it will a full alternative to Phan because it's
worth it to us. If we can't achieve that consensus,
we are left with numerous problems both practical and
social that will weigh us down enormously. My own
opinion on this is in fact mostly guided by the per-
ception that this consensus is not achievable; I'm
otherwise even sympathetic to some of the pro-GitHub
thinking.


> Cheers,
> Kevin

Cheers,
Eike