Comment by Avamander | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Avamander | Hacker News Reader

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> I don't need to waste my time doing such stuff when using email.

Claiming you don't clone the repository to your local PC is just false and will probably take more time than it does on GH.

> Excuse me, WTF?

This is what I ask every time I see someone saying e-mail is an okay way to do contributions, continuous integration and issue tracking.

> How is it negative exactly?

It's a ton of bad UX and UI. It negatively affects basically every component of development for everyone not accustomed to the bad tooling.

> All that Github and Gitlab bug tracker has is pretty UI, which doesn't mean good UX.

Better just good UI than bad both.

> Secondly, that puts all of the FOSS projects in one basket

You are out-of-touch to the possibilities available right now, Gitlab can be self-hosted.

> If <nation> wanted to deny access of FOSS projects for <another-nation>, it would just have to exercise power on Gitlab

Gitlab has no control over the independent instances of Gitlab.

> Sending bug reports to Mozzila, PostgreSQL, etc. was a good experience for me.

Sending bug reports to those companies using GH/GL has been a way better experience for me.

> Firstly it doesn't leave space for using email, which a lot of big projects have accustomed to using

So what? There's a lot of old and bad "protocols" we've killed.

> Linux was started in 1990s. Is it majorly out-of-date?

I was not talking about Linux _per se_. The way contributions and development is done is majorly out-of-date and is stifling, yes.

> Claiming you don't clone the repository to your local PC is just false and will probably take more time than it does on GH.

I clone the upstream repository first, if I see a project I want to poke at, I don't instantly fork and clone my fork.

> > Excuse me, WTF? > This is what I ask every time I see someone saying e-mail is an okay way to do contributions, continuous integration and issue tracking.

I think you forgot this: "It lets FOSS be vendor independent, it allows big projects to exist. Linux, PostgreSQL, *BSD, even git itself, uses email to collaborate. Clearly there is no negative impact as these projects are so successful."

> It negatively affects basically every component of development for everyone not accustomed to the bad tooling.

There is such thing as a good contributor. Some rando that quits on not knowing how to use a bug tracker isn't a good contributor. Somebody who takes time to learn how to use the tooling will be more beneficial to the project, than a bunch of one-time contributors whose contributions just take time to look at from main contributors. I think that having some barrier of entry really helps to conserve the time of the maintainers.

> > Secondly, that puts all of the FOSS projects in one basket

> You are out-of-touch to the possibilities available right now, Gitlab can be self-hosted.

You can build your own Chromium, but that doesn't change the fact that the web engines are getting centralized. "I only need to test on Chrome" and such. The same with hosting. The fact that you can self-host Gitlab doesn't change the fact that if everyone is hosting on Gitlab, you are putting all of the tooling to one vendor. It will devolve into "But it works on Gitlab CI".

> Sending bug reports to those companies using GH/GL has been a way better experience for me.

And would you think of the maintainers? Managing GH/GL bug tracking is difficult, as it lack features. No advanced statuses means that maintainers have to rely on hacky statuses using labels, which can get hairy really quick.

> So what? There's a lot of old and bad "protocols" we've killed.

Oh, like HTTP and FTP? Oh, wait, we're still using those. Maybe IRC? Oh wait, that is still used in development. Should we kill all of those? They are definetly old and have problems. You know what is also old and has problems? Walking by foot. So lets stop walking by foot and use bikes everywhere. Oh, you can't ride a bike in a building? Seems like we'll need to change our buildings too!

> I clone the upstream repository first, if I see a project I want to poke at, I don't instantly fork and clone my fork.

And that takes at least as much as time as pressing fork does. Leaving pull request flow at least no slower than sending a patch. That's what you were claiming at start.

> Some rando that quits on not knowing how to use a bug tracker isn't a good contributor.

How do you know that a person who doesn't want to spend time on terrible tooling isn't a good contributor? Are you using a crystal ball?

> Somebody who takes time to learn how to use the tooling will be more beneficial to the project,

Or let's just focus on working on the code not spending time on the cumbersome tooling? That'd be even more beneficial.

> You can build your own Chromium, but that doesn't change the fact that the web engines are getting centralized.

Let's talk about this "issue" when GitLab, a FOSS solution, owns 10% of the marketshare.

> Clearly there is no negative impact as these projects are so successful.

Only very few FOSS projects are that successful, who knows how many more would be if better tooling were used from the start.

> It will devolve into "But it works on Gitlab CI".

And you claim it hasn't for Makefiles, awful automake, e-mail systems? If anything the use of newer tools reduces the monoculture and stagnation.

> Managing GH/GL bug tracking is difficult, as it lack features. > No advanced statuses means that maintainers have to rely on hacky statuses using labels, which can get hairy really quick.

How big of a percent really uses "advanced statuses"? Clearly looking at Linux "advanced statuses" are not needed for even the biggest of projects. Systemd also manages very fine on GH.

> Oh, like HTTP and FTP? Oh, wait, we're still using those.

Thankfully both are dying. If you start bringing up stuff just for the sake of "see, old stuff is being used, it must be good" then keep in mind some countries also have gay people lynched, must be good, right? (Of course not.)

> Maybe IRC? Oh wait, that is still used in development.

But IRC's numbers are minuscule compared to all others. It pretty much shows that it's not as good as other solutions.

> Walking by foot. So lets stop walking by foot and use bikes everywhere. Oh, you can't ride a bike in a building? Seems like we'll need to change our buildings too!

Oh, the building is 5 stories, let's use stairs only! No, that's not how it works, we build elevators and escalators because stairs are not convenient. Oh, btw, there also are buildings where bikes and scooters are used.

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