Re: sr.ht --- "sir hat" --- alternatives to Github

["Brian Trammell (IETF)" <[e-mail]>]

> On 18 Jan 2019, at 18:26, Eric Rescorla <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> I haven't had time to really take a look at sr.ht, but that's not going to stop me from commenting! 
> 
> First, as Lars says, nothing stops people from using some !Github toolchain, and if it's good, then I'm sure people can vote with their feet. In general, the workflow here for getting started with a project is to go to the repo (via URL) git clone it, and then work, so if there were something !Github that people liked, it would be a pretty straightforward transition for contributors, modulo the network effects of their familiarity with Github, existing accounts, etc. The current efforts at systemization of Github are just paving the cowpaths.

+1 to this. 

What we have to be careful about in building processes around repositories in the git WG -- and I haven't yet seen any evidence that would raise concerns that we won't be -- is making sure those processes wrap around GitHub-shaped entities in the ecosystem, as opposed to specifically GitHub itself, and that they provide guidance for the use of features provided by said entities as options, 

If we saw BCPs coming out of the WG that, for example, mandated the GitHub Webhook API for integration with the datatracker as a matter of policy (*), that would be a problem. I trust us not to go there.

Cheers,

Brian

(*) even this would not be all that high a barrier to non-GitHub repository providers, because glue code is easy to write and host, but something like this would be a pretty clear indication to me of too deep an external dependency on a single entity.

> 
> With that said, the design philosophy Michael describes (no JS, mailing list focused) seems to me to abandon a bunch of what people like about Github. I know that Linux (for instance) has a mailing-list based process, but most open source projects I am familiar with prefer a Web-based process, in particular for code/change review. For instance, both Firefox and Chromium lean very hard on their online code review tools for patch development, interdiffs, etc., and wouldn't really want to go back to e-mail. So, from that perspective, this seems like it might be kind of a regression in features.
> 
> -Ekr
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jan 18, 2019 at 6:22 AM Richard Barnes <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jan 18, 2019 at 9:19 AM Randy Bush <[e-mail]> wrote:
> >> Also, a major reason for using Github is going where the audience is.
> > If it weren't for that, there are a boatload of alternatives.
> 
> the problem is that `git clone` is brand conscious
> 
> Not really?
> 
> > git remote rename origin eww-github
> > git remote add origin $GITLAB_OR_SIRHAT_OR_WHATEVER