On 04/30/2016 09:04 PM, Howard Chu wrote:
The process of creating a patch with git is the same, whether we use github or not. I don't believe that's particularly meaningful.
My thoughts exactly. Some 3-4 years ago. Then I've actually tried to run a project on github. It siginificanly lowers the contribution barrier. It is much easier to press "pull request" button than to bundle the patch in command-line, send it to the mailing list (subscribe there first), then wait for the maintainer, check all the time whether the patch was merged, ...
Github-like approach makes a big difference. I see it in midPoint (which I'm maintianing) and I see it in ConnId (where I'm regularly contributing). I also see how bad it is without github for several Apache projects that I watch closely. And I will probably never contribute to these (unless I really have to) because the overhead is so high.
To state that openly: I would probably never contribute to OpenLDAP documentation if I have to bundle a patch in a mail to a mailing list. I'm quite likely to contribute if there is a convenient "pull request" button or if it is maintained in a wiki.
We are running the midPoint project on github for several years. But I'm not afraid. I can still check all the code changes in any git tool I like. As a maintainer you do not need to rely on github. And if github would disappear at this very moment we will be running on a different site before the day is over. With no loss in the source code history. This is git, the migration is really trivial. So I believe that the benefits greatly outweigh the risks.
If you do not like github go for gitlab. You can even host that yourself.