Hello,
just wanted to say that I only had good experiences so far with github, albeit with rather small codebases compared to Genode. Are there any other popular medium to large projects using github?
Julian (Sorry for top posting, posting from phone)
Christian Helmuth <christian.helmuth@...1...> schrieb:
Hello everyone,
we're now walking the open path. Therefore, I want to discuss my ideas about the future issue-tracking process of Genode here on the list.
The challenge
The current "process" of handling issues is rather pragmatic and little transparent for the community. Most issues are reported and discussed on this mailing list. Hence, reports are mostly unstructured and difficult to track. At Genode Labs, we maintain a private tracker for our projects partially of interest for the Genode community. So, the first step (as Norman already wrote) is to migrate these issues into a publicly accessible tracker.
Furthermore, issues have some quirks to keep in mind when deciding upon on a tracking process. First, apparently resolved issues may rise from grave and it's precious to have their history at hand to fight them back. Also, the resolution of closed issues should be accessible in the code repository to know when and how it works. Sometimes it's also good to find out who fixed the issue and, thus, have a contact for further questions. Finally, a well maintained issue database reflects the current stage and activity of the project, assists contributors to get started, and reflects which missing features are already in the back of our minds.
We decided to go for a public Git-based repository for Genode sources and, so, it is natural to go for an open collaboration model. Two widely used models are the "Fork + pull-request model" and patch-based integration. IMO both should be supported.
In the following, I will now and then evaluate features available from GitHub to our requirements. We did not finally choose GitHub but I must admit I'm a strong proponent of this platform.
Reporting an issue
We definitely need a simple guide on "How to report an issue" to avoid the tedious question-and-answer game. My proposal is:
- Summarize important information of your issue in the _title_.
- Start the _body_ with steps to reproduce it. Name the affected
version/commit. 3. Sketch the expected behaviour. 4. Detail what happened instead.
The life cycle of an issue
After the issue was reported it will undergo a life cycle until it's eventually closed. Each life stage depends on the issue type and the steps taken to resolve it. The important issue types I identified are _bug_, _feature_, and _documentation_. The issue type should be marked in the tracker and may be used for filtering/sorting.
If someone works on a reported issue, he may want to submit a fix as _patch_ or as _pull_ request. Pull request should come from a persistent topic branch in a fork of the main repository. So, the issue and its history can be tracked in the future. The fact of a submitted fix shall also be marked in the tracker. Moreover, discussions upon an issue should be attached to the issue in the tracker.
Eventually, a decision on the issue will be reached, which can be that a _fix_ was accepted or incorporated, the issue was identified as a _duplicate_ of an older issue filed, or the issue was _rejected_ by some cause. If the issue revives it may be reopened and the cycle starts over.
Some optional features I did not investigate further, but that may become useful are: assignment to team members, tagging an affected release version, and an urgency marker.
Does it work every day with GitHub?
To get hands-on with the issue tracking I added a playground repository to my GitHub account. The associated issue tracker can be found under
https://github.com/chelmuth/playground/issues
I added _tags_ to mark all the information mentioned before.
The integration of Git and the GitHub platform is quite good. Issues can be referenced in discussion threads of other issues as well as in commit messages via '#<issue number>', e.g., #1. Issues also have their own URL, e.g.,
https://github.com/chelmuth/playground/issues/4
Issues even can be closed from commit messages. The committer just adds a recognizable text, e.g., 'Fixes #3'. For more information have a look at
https://github.com/blog/831-issues-2-0-the-next-generation
Another interesting feature is the reference of other developers on GitHub via '@<username>', e.g. @chelmuth. Hence, the involvement of potential contributors into the discussion is straightforward.
Finally, GitHub provides (on the web and via the 'hub' tool [1]) excellent integration of the fork+pull collaboration model. This feature is described in detail at
http://help.github.com/send-pull-requests/
The idea of handling pull requests like issues including a discussion thread is great.
I'm looking forward to your feedback.
Kind regards
Christian Helmuth Genode Labs
http://www.genode-labs.com/ · http://genode.org/ · /ˈdʒiː.nəʊd/
Genode Labs GmbH · Amtsgericht Dresden · HRB 28424 · Sitz Dresden Geschäftsführer: Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske, Christian Helmuth
Learn Windows Azure Live! Tuesday, Dec 13, 2011 Microsoft is holding a special Learn Windows Azure training event for developers. It will provide a great way to learn Windows Azure and what it provides. You can attend the event by watching it streamed LIVE online. Learn more at http://p.sf.net/sfu/ms-windowsazure _______________________________________________ Genode-main mailing list Genode-main@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/genode-main
Hello,
just wanted to say that I only had good experiences so far with github, albeit with rather small codebases compared to Genode. Are there any other popular medium to large projects using github?
one particular project that I am closely following is Milkymist (http://milkymist.org), which is an Open-Source SoC (HDL) + system software + applications software. Last time I met the project's founder Sébastien Bourdeauducq in summer, he was full of praise about Github, especially about the user interface.
Actually, the existence and reputation of Github served as a strong argument for convincing me to make the switch from Mercurial (which we used internally during the last 3 years) to Git in the first place.
From what I gathered so far, I see no reason not to go for Github.
Compared to Genode's status quo (SVN on Sourceforge), it seems to be vastly superior in each respect. Most importantly, I think that the simplicity of not only forking the code but also collaborating in a loosely coupled and distributed fashion as promoted so well by Github would be a win for our project.
Cheers Norman
Hi Julian,
On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 06:13:56PM +0100, Julian Stecklina wrote:
Are there any other popular medium to large projects using github?
I think https://github.com/torvalds/linux is a proof of feasibility. GitHub picked up when kernel.org had problems this summer.
Greets
Just playing devil's advocate here,
Linus was actually a little displeased with github for _managing_ the larger projects, see here: http://blueparen.com/node/12
There was also a decent rant thread from him about it somewhere but I'm having trouble locating it now.
I suppose Linux has a lot worse signal-to-noise ratio than genode would though on source commits (at least at this stage)
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 6:16 AM, Christian Helmuth <christian.helmuth@...1...> wrote:
Hi Julian,
On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 06:13:56PM +0100, Julian Stecklina wrote:
Are there any other popular medium to large projects using github?
I think https://github.com/torvalds/linux is a proof of feasibility. GitHub picked up when kernel.org had problems this summer.
Greets
Christian Helmuth Genode Labs
http://www.genode-labs.com/ · http://genode.org/ · /ˈdʒiː.nəʊd/
Genode Labs GmbH · Amtsgericht Dresden · HRB 28424 · Sitz Dresden Geschäftsführer: Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske, Christian Helmuth
Learn Windows Azure Live! Tuesday, Dec 13, 2011 Microsoft is holding a special Learn Windows Azure training event for developers. It will provide a great way to learn Windows Azure and what it provides. You can attend the event by watching it streamed LIVE online. Learn more at http://p.sf.net/sfu/ms-windowsazure _______________________________________________ Genode-main mailing list Genode-main@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/genode-main
Hi Wes,
Linus was actually a little displeased with github for _managing_ the larger projects, see here: http://blueparen.com/node/12
There was also a decent rant thread from him about it somewhere but I'm having trouble locating it now.
thanks for the link. I can understand Linus Torvald's point as he has established a ridig and well-tuned flow of pull requests for his project. Having every contributor posting issues and pull requests to the mainline repository is obviously not going to work. I hope that the Github developers will listen to his critique because otherwise the solution won't scale to projects at the size of the Linux kernel. That said, I don't foresee this becoming a problem for Genode in the short (and mid) term.
Cheers Norman
Yep, I am personally happy with github and think it would be a good move for Genode. Like I said, I was just playing devil's advocate with the intention of making sure the decision was as informed as possible :)
Cheers, Wes On 19/12/2011 8:24 PM, "Norman Feske" <norman.feske@...1...> wrote:
Hi Wes,
Linus was actually a little displeased with github for _managing_ the larger projects, see here: http://blueparen.com/node/12
There was also a decent rant thread from him about it somewhere but I'm having trouble locating it now.
thanks for the link. I can understand Linus Torvald's point as he has established a ridig and well-tuned flow of pull requests for his project. Having every contributor posting issues and pull requests to the mainline repository is obviously not going to work. I hope that the Github developers will listen to his critique because otherwise the solution won't scale to projects at the size of the Linux kernel. That said, I don't foresee this becoming a problem for Genode in the short (and mid) term.
Cheers Norman
Learn Windows Azure Live! Tuesday, Dec 13, 2011 Microsoft is holding a special Learn Windows Azure training event for developers. It will provide a great way to learn Windows Azure and what it provides. You can attend the event by watching it streamed LIVE online. Learn more at http://p.sf.net/sfu/ms-windowsazure _______________________________________________ Genode-main mailing list Genode-main@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/genode-main
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Christian Helmuth -
Julian Stecklina -
Norman Feske -
Wes