From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from relay5-d.mail.gandi.net (relay5-d.mail.gandi.net [IPv6:2001:4b98:dc4:8::225]) by sourceware.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id C4DA7386CE69 for ; Thu, 9 Jun 2022 11:18:16 +0000 (GMT) DMARC-Filter: OpenDMARC Filter v1.4.1 sourceware.org C4DA7386CE69 Authentication-Results: sourceware.org; dmarc=none (p=none dis=none) header.from=seketeli.org Authentication-Results: sourceware.org; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=seketeli.org Received: (Authenticated sender: dodji@seketeli.org) by mail.gandi.net (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id A74AC1C0008; Thu, 9 Jun 2022 11:18:14 +0000 (UTC) Received: by localhost (Postfix, from userid 1000) id D5EF85800FC; Thu, 9 Jun 2022 13:18:13 +0200 (CEST) From: Dodji Seketeli To: v via Libabigail Cc: Mark Wielaard , v Subject: Re: Testing Setup - More Tests and Automation? Organization: Me, myself and I References: <34E58964-E930-4DF9-87CD-18D4C63DBCEB@redhat.com> <20220430195507.GA11996@gnu.wildebeest.org> X-Operating-System: Fedora 37 X-URL: http://www.seketeli.net/~dodji Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2022 13:18:13 +0200 In-Reply-To: (v. via Libabigail's message of "Sat, 30 Apr 2022 14:36:47 -0600") Message-ID: <87edzykruy.fsf@seketeli.org> User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/27.1 (gnu/linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, JMQ_SPF_NEUTRAL, KAM_DMARC_STATUS, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW, SPF_HELO_NONE, SPF_PASS, TXREP, T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.6 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.6 (2021-04-09) on server2.sourceware.org X-BeenThere: libabigail@sourceware.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: Mailing list of the Libabigail project List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2022 11:18:19 -0000 Hello Vanessa, v via Libabigail a =C3=A9crit: [...] First of all, let me say that for what it's worth, I support your effort of building a stronger community at 1000%, at very least. Now, my take is that, in a very pragmatic way, we just need to figure out a way to get "there". [...] > I understand the desire to not use proprietary software, but if you needed > to move the setup elsewhere that's not hard to do! Modern software > developers use GitHub, and all major companies (including RedHat) grow > strong communities of developers on there. Podman is a good example: > https://github.com/containers/podman. Git is git, so you could develop on > GitHub and keep a backup on sourceware, and have an automated workflow to > do that. In other words, there are ways to have your cake and eat it too. > Let's take a look at Libabigail. From Ben's contributor graph: > https://github.com/woodard/libabigail/graphs/contributors > > Or from git: > > 1835 Dodji Seketeli > 144 Giuliano Procida > 135 Matthias Maennich > 35 Benjamin Kosnik > 33 Dodji Seketeli > 19 Chenxiong Qi > 19 Mark Wielaard > 19 Ondrej Oprala > 15 Sinny Kumari > 13 Thomas Schwinge > 11 Ondrej Oprala > 9 Jan Engelhardt > 8 Guillermo E. Martinez > 8 tangmeng > 7 Ben Woodard > 7 Jonathan Wakely > 7 Jose E. Marchesi > 5 Mark Wielaard > 4 Sinny Kumari > 4 maennich@google.com > 2 Matthias Klose > 1 David Cantrell > 1 David Seifert > 1 Dodji > 1 George Rawlinson > 1 Jessica Yu > 1 Randy MacLeod > 1 Roland McGrath > 1 Slava Barinov > 1 Vanessa Sochat > 1 Xiao Jia > > You have *eighteen* contributors with over 5 commits in a project that is= 8 > years old, and that includes repeated individuals using different > alias/email. Out of those 18, it looks like there are maybe 3 that have > contributed meaningfully (and recently), and talking with Ben (and seeing > number of commits), I get a sense that the main developer is Dodji and he > is overwhelmed. So (to me) for a library that is as important as > libabigail, this is problematic. The bus factor is really high. Compare > that to Podman https://github.com/containers/podman/graphs/contributors, > which is also a niche technology / area of work, and the project has only > been around since late 2017 (and I don't know when it went up on GitHub > from perhaps being private at RedHat) and it has almost 400 contributors > (just over 100 with >=3D 5 commits) and many others that haven't contribu= ted > directly to the code (myself included) but have contributed via issues and > other interaction. > > So (to me) this is a problem that needs to be solved, and I don't think > keeping things the way that they are is that solution, regardless of how > you innovate a bit with adding automation. The cost of not changing your > current setup is very high, and I worry about the future of libabigail. As > a developer I want to contribute and champion the work, but in its current > state I find the project feels very closed and not trying bring me in. The > students I spoke to at CU Boulder were inspired, but they will stop their > exploration when they realize it's not easy to ask questions or for help. > In other words, you are 100% losing out in terms of new contributors and > developers by not using these modern practices and services. That is of > course your choice (and I respect the choices you make generally) but I > strongly suggest you have a conversation with your team about this issue, > and action you can take to address it. I really have enjoyed using > libabigail and I think it can be better in many ways, not just the library > itself but supported tools, automation, and branding, and this burden > cannot just be on one or two developers. > > Thank you for engaging with me in this conversation, and fingers crossed > this message is not rejected for too many links, etc. ! What else can I say, really :-) This is so eloquently put. There is not much I can add to this. Thank you so much and let's get there together. Cheers, --=20 Dodji