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Re: ideas to improve patch and CI integration

 

On 10/22/2018 5:59 AM, Maciej Sumiński wrote:
> Hi Thomas,
> 
> I like Gitlab, but it is a matter of taste and obviously the final word
> belongs to Wayne. I think the main problem would be to transfer the bug
> tracker and decide what to do regarding the mailing list.

We have actually discussed this possibility privately so it's on our
radar.  I personally would like to see the entire project on a single
site instead of our current situation where we have repos on both
launchpad and github.  I haven't use gitlab so I cannot speak about it's
pros and cons but I have looked over some the documentation and it seems
comparable to github so I suspect it would be more than acceptable.

> 
> Another point is a plan for a case when Gitlab turns evil. Currently
> they offer Gold version to open source projects for free [1], but you
> never know what will happen in a few years. Either we pay or host a
> limited version (Community Edition) privately. I realize the same thing
> may happen with Launchpad, the point is to decide whether we would be
> satisfied with Gitlab Community Edition features.

I would bet money this will happen at some point in the future so it
could be an issue when it does unless we just limit the kicad project to
using the community edition.

> 
> You may also find insightful a discussion we head about moving KiCad
> from Bazaar to Git [2].

Fun times!  As always, there are no silver bullets.  If we choose to go
down this path, there will be issues that will have to be resolved.

> 
> Cheers,
> Orson
> 
> 1. https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/#gitlab-com
> 2. https://lists.launchpad.net/kicad-developers/msg25668.html
> 
> 
> On 10/21/18 7:11 PM, Thomas Pointhuber wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I think this topic will have many different point of views, but I think
>> it is important to discuss it anyway.
>>
>> I'm now about 5 years on the project, started as library maintainer and
>> now sometimes with code contributions as well. I experienced at least a
>> few different types of how software projects can be design of a
>> management perspective to get work done.
>>
>> Currently, there is the time where many big organizations (GNOME and
>> freedesktop.org for example) moved their development to custom GitLab
>> instances. And I would like to propose to think about that for KiCad as
>> well. Not because everyone does it, but because it would benefit the
>> project itself. There are various reasons I can think of right now:
>>
>> * patches are sometimes simply forgotten on the mailing list
>> * it is pretty hard to find old patches on the mailing list unless you
>> have the e-mails stored on your account. You cannot search on launchpad
>> * CI integration of patches is missing. People need to run them explicit
>> before merging, or the automated build will fail at some point
>> * getting CI runs for various systems requires explicit request due to
>> missing automatization
>> * no automated linter checks (would require us to reformat the project)
>> * it's hard to track changes of patches, especially when modified,
>> squashed,...
>> * way better possibilities to view/edit/show history online
>> * review tools on Launchpad are cumbersome and rarely used. This should
>> be the standard in point of fact.
>>   * easier to handle a proper review than with e-mail
>> * easier to keep track how discussions evolved
>> * the project is currently split between Launchpad and GitHub, this
>> would allow us to combine all parts on one platform
>> * GitLab would theoretically allow us add custom differs for library review
>> * new contributors likely know GitHub/Gitlab workflow and can join more
>> easily
>>
>> I know this is quite some heavy proposal due to change of workflow and
>> bug-migration. Nevertheless, we should at least discuss it.
>>
>> PS: A college built a working GitLab CI script with export of build
>> artifacts. GitLab integration of Jenkins would be possible as well.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Thomas
> 
> 
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