Re: Membership request for group GNU LilyPond Music Typesetter

[Trevor Daniels]

Graham Percival wrote Tuesday, May 27, 2008 4:42 AM
> On Mon, 26 May 2008 23:37:36 -0300
> "Han-Wen Nienhuys" <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> > Push access means:
> >
> > -a contributor has to prove himself reliable
> >
> > -savannah hoop jumping
> >
> > -some handholding to make sure that no disasters are pushed to our
> > repo
> >
> > theoretically, with forks, we don't have to deal with this, and can
> > cherry-pick patches on a one-by-e case.
>
> Hmm.  I guess I don't quite understand what you mean by a fork vs.
> a branch.  

A fork is a clone of a repository which then runs 
independently, right?  Unlike a branch a developer
can be granted access to it without gaining access
to the main repository.

> Since I don't really understand what you mean by "forks", I don't
> know how this would improve things... unless you're suggesting
> that we split the documentation away from the source code, and put
> it in an entirely separate doc tree.

It wouldn't be split; it would exist in parallel.  So 
edits to the docs would be pushed there, the nightly doc
compiles would be made there, and every so often someone
with access to both repos would either cherry-pick all 
the commits into the main repo, or simply copy the latest 
tested and accepted versions of the .itelys and push them
en bloc to the main repo.  

Have I got this right?

> I wouldn't be opposed to
> this (ie Documentation/ and input/ get moved; input/regression
> stays in the source tree), but I'm not certain that it's worth all
> the work to separate the trees.

Forking wouldn't change anything in the main 
repo- so little work would be needed.  The
doc fork could be updated from the main one
nightly, so it would remain up to date.

> > Also, you mention that you spend a lot of time on people that do not
> > have push access.  The interesting question is: where is that time
> > going?  If we can make all those contributors spend a few minutes more
> > each day on preparing and verifying their changes, a lot of time can
> > be saved.

Someone would need to be identified to manage this.
They would need to be able to compile the docs and
fix any errors which breaks the build - much like 
Graham does now.  Finding someone is the hard bit!

OTOH, if the docs are to be maintained such a person
is needed whatever system is adopted.
 
> - Graham

Trevor