On Thu, Sep 19, 2024 at 3:52 PM Joseph Myers via Gdb <g...@sourceware.org> wrote: > > 1. Introduction > > This message expands on my remarks at the Cauldron (especially the > patch review and maintenance BoF, and the Sourceware infrastructure > BoF) regarding desired features for a system providing pull request > functionality (patch submission via creating branches that are then > proposed using some kind of web interface or API, with a central > database then tracking the status of each pull request and review > comments thereon automatically),
I wasn't at Cauldron, but I just wanted to say that a lot of the web-based interfaces (git-lab, github, gitea, gogs, etc) for providing pull request functionality pre-date the existence of git-protocol features that also allow you to implement the pull request type behavior, the git proc receive hook https://git-scm.com/docs/githooks#proc-receive can be used to implement a pull-request style workflow without the web interface. This is somewhat going against the grain, and has a less developed ecosystem of clients/servers/hosting resources, I haven't kept up to date with what tools are actually available, last I looked though the only tool I knew of using it was https://git-repo.info/en/ for the client, and I written a prototype implementation using the hook as a server (as far as I know the only other server tools using this are the proprietary codeup.aliyun which might be internal to alibaba?). To me though it is nice being able to edit the PR cover letter directly in the editor, and do the pull-request using command line tools. What draws me to this however, is that it allows me to set up an in-house review process using the same set of tools that eventually feeds into upstream while mirroring the CI architecture locally. That is the dream anyway and in my opinion represents the style of pull request workflow we should be aiming for if we want something ideal. Anyhow, IMO a big reason why all of these workflows are so centralized is just that they are going outside the git protocol. To me the work that has been done seems promising as a proof of concept distributed pull request system, and what it is probably lacking is putting an actual web-based interface on top of the git protocol based design and a lot of spit and polish. At least to me the whole sourceware ecosystem feels like an ideal candidate for this, since it is much more common to have ports in progress to unfinished or unreleased instruction sets, than would happen with almost any other piece of software. So there is some amount of justification for going against the grain of a centralized system imo.
