Collaboration (was Re: [webkit-dev] Pulling together on WebKit Mobile)

[Mike Emmel]

On Jan 11, 2008 12:14 PM, Mark Rowe <mrowe at apple.com> wrote:
> [This is drifting far from Alp's original email.  I hope the points he
> raised are not overlooked due to discussion on this very tangential
> topic.]
>
>
> On 12/01/2008, at 06:55, Mike Emmel wrote:
>
> > And its a good way to allow developers to build up a work history to
>
> > ask for main commit rights.
>
> We already have a well-defined policy for how this is handled, <http://webkit.org/coding/commit-review-policy.html
>  >.  I don't see what hosting git repositories has to do with
> Subversion commit access.
>
> > I have a patch for example to allow the gtk webkit to run on OSX. But
> > its a workaround for a bug in the cairo OSX port.
> > I'd like to be able to get the patch public and work with the cairo
> > OSX port maintainer to explain why I did what I did
> > and what he could do to cairo to fix OSX cairo.
> >
> > Without a public work area this sort of problem is difficult to work
> > on.
> > Assuming cairo is fixed then we would need to figure out version info
> > for the OSX port of GTK etc etc.
>
> I've found email works really well for discussing patches in the
> past.   Indeed, that's what we use for a lot of patch discussion
> inside Apple.   Would an "official", public git repository make this
> easier?  Possibly.  A git repository for collaboration is a nicety,
> but hardly a necessity.  As Oliver mentioned, it is not at all
> difficult to publish your own public git repository.
>

I never claimed it was a necessity I just think it would be a very nice to have.
And I think it would foster getting more code ready for submission
faster and easier.

As far as the current process for submission goes nothing wrong with it.




> > Being able to run the OSX port and the gtk port at the same time on
> > OSX is a nice feature.
> > Other open source ports such as QT might want a similar workspace for
> > similar problems.
>
> Staikos Computing Services provides something similar to what you
> describe for those collaborating on the Qt port, <http://trac.webkit.org/projects/webkit/wiki/QtWebKitContrib
>  >.  While I would prefer it were hosted somewhere more
> "official" (eg, git.webkit.org alongside the git mirror of SVN), I
> have heard very few requests for this from outside the Qt developer
> community.  It is something I am interested in doing in the future,
> but it takes planning and time that I can better spend elsewhere at
> present.
>
> > As of now the patch sits in my git tree unsubmitted.
>
> Do you consider using git to be a requirement for you to contribute at
> all to WebKit?
>

I'd like for it to be very easy to contribute a git tree with commit
rights that was acceptable to the WebKit community
would make it very easy to create branches for bug fixes and and as a
work area.
And it makes it easy to allow outstanding patches to track the head.

I found the current process of submitting a patch having the head
change breaking the patch resubmitting
etc etc to be clumsy.  If the patch was on a git tree that matched the
head the branch then then applied.

I feel the workflow for patch submission could be made a lot easier
with this approach.
Especially for complex issues.

As far as small side projects like WebKit on OSX-GTK yes I consider it
a requirement since Its something
that makes sense to share with a broader community.

I've got other small projects I'd like to share with others before
they are ready to submit to the mainline.
And more important if others are interested I'd like to see what they
are working on without having to discover
git repos scattered randomly about the internet.

Back to the OSX-GTK example it should be branched from the working
gtk/webkit repository that the gtk developers are using
for work in progress but ?
And even better to see the latest QT work from the same git repo.
Did the QT guys implement something that could be used as a guide for
the GTK port but not land it in the
main tree ?


For me having this sort of work area would be very useful.

Hopefully others feel the same way.


> - Mark
>
>