Feature matrix for future infrastructure

[Kevin Kofler]

Thomas Lübking wrote:
> If you had followed the discussion or at least looked at that feature
> matrix Milian started and that you liked to high-handedly deem as rubbish,
> you'd have noticed that webfrontends to upload patches (like suggested
> https://tools.wmflabs.org/gerrit-patch-uploader/) are available to follow
> a "download tarball, edit, diff files by hand and upload the patch"
> workflow.
> 
> The reason that this is not the suggested approach in the techbase article
> is likely, that it is an incredibly inefficient approach that contradicts
> the very basic idea of SCM.

The above process is how distribution patches are typically produced though, 
so accepting such diffs makes it much easier for distribution packagers to 
upstream their patches.

An alternative process that also works with web uploaders is "git diff" or
"git format-patch" (which any decent GUI for git can do, so it can be done 
without ever touching the git command line) and uploading the result. I find 
this much nicer to work with than "magic refs".

(It shall be noted that ReviewBoard currently supports the latter, but not 
the former, because it is very picky about what patches it accepts. So I 
have actually have to clone the repository, apply the distribution patch and 
then reexport it from git. It's still better than having to figure out some 
obscure ref magic, but it could be even nicer if it accepted the 
distribution-produced patch directly.)

So, with my distribution packager hat on, I think a web upload feature 
should be a requirement. (I also agree with other posters that it would be 
more friendly to newcomers, too.)

        Kevin Kofler