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> Personally I would be hard pressed to bother contributing to a project not on GitHub at this point. Personally I find it a pain to deal with github-only proj

> Personally I would be hard pressed to bother contributing to a project not on GitHub at this point. Personally I find it a pain to deal with github-only projects. Why should I have to sign up to a social network for coders when I could just send a patch to the development mailing list? It's more depressing than surprising that Microsoft paid $7.5B for that.

dmitriid 7y ago
Why should I have to sign up to potentially dozens of mailing lists to track the projects I’m interested in when I can track them all in ine place with that ne login?
- username223 7y ago
  You're tracking dozens of projects? Following every twist and turn of dozens of projects sounds like a huge time-suck, but maybe we just work differently. I follow a couple that interest me (via SMTP), check in on some others from time to time (via NNTP), and occasionally mail a patch when I fix a bug in something I would rather not follow. It's not that hard.
  - dmitriid 7y ago
    So. A couple that interest you. Plus an irregular check on some others. And occasionally a patch. So, three-five mailing lists. Vs. the convenience of a single login and actual conversations you can follow in issues/PRs. With a one-click PR request if I want to send a patch (that can be easily discussed, annotated, cross-linked to issues and other PRs).
  - dmitriid 7y ago
    I forgot to answer this: > You're tracking dozens of projects? Following every twist and turn of dozens of projects sounds like a huge time-suck, but maybe we just work differently. The thing is, GitHub provides granular access. You can just star a project, and return to it when you want. You can follow a specific issue. You can follow every twist and turn of a project. Depending on my current interest or area of research, I can deal with any number of active projects which I may "snooze" when I no longer need them (but will still get notifications on conversations/issues/PRs I'm involved in). And to do all that I don't need to be a part of multiple mail lists with no control of what gets sent or muted. I also have direct access to all the PRs and issues where I'm involved without needing to remember which mail list it was on. And without needing to discover those mailing lists in the first place (is it an <x>-users mailing list? an <x>-dev? an <x>-development? an <x>-contrib? an <x>-patch? what are the rules? etc.) Github is extremely convenient for a very large number of otherwise tedious tasks.
- kazinator 7y ago
  That's a good question. Part of the answer is that a properly run mailing list doesn't require subscription in order for you to post a question or a patch, and also keeps you in the loop (i.e. lets you receive the replies to your posting) by avoiding "reply-to header munging". The barrier of having to subscribe to lists is just a quick and lazy anti-spam measure that decreases usability for everyone. So that is to say, mailing lists in their original inception didn't require "tracking" as a prerequisite for engagement. They were really just re-mailing robots: you write a message to a robot, and it sends it to others. Those others do "reply all", so that you receive the reply even though the robot doesn't have you in the list. The robot stays in the loop because it is CC'd, and so the list subscribers can track the discussion. When I have some question, or want to report a bug, I don't actually want to track all of the activities in that project's mailing list. It is rude to expect that of me. And anyway, there are web archives of mailing lists! All the mailing lists that I operate are in this classic open manner.

dmitriid 7y ago

Why should I have to sign up to potentially dozens of mailing lists to track the projects I’m interested in when I can track them all in ine place with that ne login?

username223 7y ago
You're tracking dozens of projects? Following every twist and turn of dozens of projects sounds like a huge time-suck, but maybe we just work differently. I follow a couple that interest me (via SMTP), check in on some others from time to time (via NNTP), and occasionally mail a patch when I fix a bug in something I would rather not follow. It's not that hard.
- dmitriid 7y ago
  So. A couple that interest you. Plus an irregular check on some others. And occasionally a patch. So, three-five mailing lists. Vs. the convenience of a single login and actual conversations you can follow in issues/PRs. With a one-click PR request if I want to send a patch (that can be easily discussed, annotated, cross-linked to issues and other PRs).
- dmitriid 7y ago
  I forgot to answer this: > You're tracking dozens of projects? Following every twist and turn of dozens of projects sounds like a huge time-suck, but maybe we just work differently. The thing is, GitHub provides granular access. You can just star a project, and return to it when you want. You can follow a specific issue. You can follow every twist and turn of a project. Depending on my current interest or area of research, I can deal with any number of active projects which I may "snooze" when I no longer need them (but will still get notifications on conversations/issues/PRs I'm involved in). And to do all that I don't need to be a part of multiple mail lists with no control of what gets sent or muted. I also have direct access to all the PRs and issues where I'm involved without needing to remember which mail list it was on. And without needing to discover those mailing lists in the first place (is it an <x>-users mailing list? an <x>-dev? an <x>-development? an <x>-contrib? an <x>-patch? what are the rules? etc.) Github is extremely convenient for a very large number of otherwise tedious tasks.
kazinator 7y ago
That's a good question. Part of the answer is that a properly run mailing list doesn't require subscription in order for you to post a question or a patch, and also keeps you in the loop (i.e. lets you receive the replies to your posting) by avoiding "reply-to header munging". The barrier of having to subscribe to lists is just a quick and lazy anti-spam measure that decreases usability for everyone. So that is to say, mailing lists in their original inception didn't require "tracking" as a prerequisite for engagement. They were really just re-mailing robots: you write a message to a robot, and it sends it to others. Those others do "reply all", so that you receive the reply even though the robot doesn't have you in the list. The robot stays in the loop because it is CC'd, and so the list subscribers can track the discussion. When I have some question, or want to report a bug, I don't actually want to track all of the activities in that project's mailing list. It is rude to expect that of me. And anyway, there are web archives of mailing lists! All the mailing lists that I operate are in this classic open manner.