Re: [Ietf-and-github] Warren Kumari's Discuss on draft-ietf-git-using-github-05: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

[Martin Thomson <[e-mail]>]

Hi Mark,

Any input, even late input, is better than nothing.  I appreciate you spending the time.

On Thu, Mar 12, 2020, at 11:23, Mark Nottingham wrote:
> * "Chairs MUST involve Area Directors in any decision to use GitHub for 
> anything more than managing drafts."  This seems onerous; does it mean 
> that I need to consult with the AD to host some tests (e.g., 
> <https://github.com/httpwg/structured-header-tests>), a repository for 
> a wiki (e.g., <https://github.com/httpwg/wiki/wiki>), working group 
> administrivia (<https://github.com/quicwg/wg-materials>), or a 
> translation (<https://github.com/quicwg/zh-translations>)?

Yes, this was not considered in the original drafting.  There is a proposed revision in https://github.com/ietf-gitwg/using-github/commit/e74ba457de2f0843a42c1214bec0033f559f187a

> * "Maintaining multiple documents in the same repository can add 
> overhead that negatively affects individual documents.  For instance, 
> issues might require additional markings to identify the document that 
> they affect.  Also, because editors all have write access to the 
> repository, managing the set of people with write access to a larger 
> repository is more difficult (Section 3.3)."  This is well-worn 
> territory, but there are also costs associated with having many 
> repositories -- both in terms of WG chair load, and in terms of 
> potential errors (as we're discovering in QUIC).

I believe that encouraging the use of separate repos is the consensus outcome of working group discussions.  You were involved.  Suggestions for different wordings are always welcome, of course.

> * "Issues that have reached a resolution that has Working Group 
> consensus MUST NOT be reopened unless new information is presented."  
> This seems to be pre-emptively establishing both the status of Github 
> issues in the IETF process, and the semantics of their state. 

There is a proposed revision in https://github.com/ietf-gitwg/using-github/commit/b872e534db4c885cd3cbfaac64fff7d06d41c5d4 (though Chris later improved the text further, see the PR: https://github.com/ietf-gitwg/using-github/pull/43 for more)

> * "Editors SHOULD create a new Internet-Draft submission two weeks 
> prior to every session..."  How is this requirement specific to Github?

It's a poor restatement of the (lowercase) recommendation that was cited.  I have reworded here: https://github.com/ietf-gitwg/using-github/pull/48

> * Generally, there are a lot of RFC2119 terms that seem advisory, not 
> normative. Are they all well-considered? To give one example: "Editors 
> SHOULD make pull requests for all substantial changes rather than 
> committing directly to the "master" branch of the repository." What 
> does it mean to violate that SHOULD?

A lot of these have been removed in response to reviews.  Including that example in response to Mirja's review: https://github.com/ietf-gitwg/using-github/pull/45