Another proposal for modernization of our infrastructure

[Eike Hein]

On 01/29/2015 10:34 PM, Thomas Lübking wrote:
> Given the multiple concerns on the gerrit webfrontend (not only in this
> kcd thread) I however also assume that it should be not too hard to get
> a serious improvement upstream.
> That includes "If we endup w/ a -hypothetical- decision between
> 'powerful, but the webfrontend sucks' and 'pretty ui, but the backend
> seriously falls short', i'd be happily willing to help on an improvement
> here".
>
> (At least from my POV, it should be simpler to fix some GUI than to get
> a well scaling replication and CI backend - by the order of some
> magnitudes ;-)

Maybe, but this is actually something I like from the
Phabricator proposal: It provides an impression of our
relationship with Phabricator upstream, which it says
is a good and constructive one.

In my experience, this is worth tons. Consider the
switch we did from autotools to CMake, where CMake
partly won out over other solutions because upstream
really wanted to work with us and did. We had similar
luck with gitolite, where upstream did a ton of real
feature work to address our needs. Redmine/Chili
helped us a little bit, too, actually.

So keep in mind that "we need to fix this if we adopt
it" takes manpower, and historically, we've relied to
some degree to getting that manpower *from upstream*.
This is is in my book a world of difference from
"upstream might accept our patches ... maybe".


Cheers,
Eike