Re: New Non-WG Mailing List: Ietf-and-github -- Discussion of using GitHub in IETF activities, particularly for Working Groups

[Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 4:51 PM, Doug Barton <[e-mail]> wrote:
> On 01/26/2016 02:50 PM, Melinda Shore wrote:
>>
>> I am not a fan of making IETF processes dependent on
>> technologies that don't "belong" to the IETF and I don't
>> think it's a trivial concern, but if the IETF tools
>> aren't working for us it makes sense to look outside for
>> tools that do.
>
>
> The IETF is two decades behind on using revision control in a systematic
> way, nowhere more significantly than in the area of drafts. At this point,
> anything reasonable we can do to improve the situation should be embraced.
>
> Github is well established, and well respected (as others have pointed out
> already). While git is not my favorite VCS, it has the advantage of being
> able to trivially clone the repo, making any IETF "investment" there a safe
> bet.
>
> There is a different, longer term question about whether the IETF should
> host its own services in this area. Given the perpetually constrained
> resources of our organization I think that if we can safely "outsource"
> functions where the potential benefits are great, and the risks are small,
> we should do that.
>
> As for the concern about needing to learn how to use revision control
> creating a new barrier to entry for ID authors, at this point it's a
> marginal cost compared to nroff, xml2rfc, etc. You can do everything you
> need to do for something like this with git in 5 or 6 commands. The basic
> instructions for cloning a repo, checking in changes, etc. will fit on one
> sheet of paper (speaking from experience).
>
> We should be doing everything we can to make progress in this area.

I find git a pain in the patootie. Every revision control system I
have ever used has had severe code NAZI issues. Git periodically gets
terminally confused and the only solution seems to be to blow
everything up.

No, you don't have to learn xml2rfc either. I haven't used it in ten
years. I moved to HTML, then people suggested Markdown instead so I
did that and then I found a package that extracts everything I want
from Word documents.

If the tools were really first class and well designed, I would have
no problem recommending people use them. But these are not tools I use
except on sufferance.