Re: Contributing Without Patches ...

[Suvayu Ali <fatkasuvayu+linux@gmail.com>]

Hi Achim,

On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 08:12:57PM +0200, Achim Gratz wrote:
> Suvayu Ali writes:
> > On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 09:45:47AM -0600, Eric Schulte wrote:
> >> Pull requests are a github thing, not a git thing.
> >
> > Well actually I think it is a Git thing.  I believe it just says: my
> > changes are in the public branch <some_url>, kindly pull from there;
> > eliminating the need to attach patches.  As an added advantage, it
> > preserves the commit hashes and many other committer/author information.
> 
> That requires that the repository in question is configured as a remote,
> so you aren't usually in a position to tell upstream to pull from your
> repository (it only ever gets pushed to).  The "Github thing" with the
> pull request is that you can make a feature branch to any repo and then
> ask the maintainer to pull from there, which merges your changes.

Isn't that two commands away:

$ git remote add <name> <some_url>
$ git pull <name> <branch>

> There is no author information lost when you send patches as long as
> they are created by format-patch.  As with any rebase, the history is
> thrown away, but that is mostly a good thing for patches.

If you use patches, you do lose committer information.  I hear this
advise often: rebase before adding features.  But isn't that trying to
work in the old ways of linear history.  If there is a need (when
working on large features), then there is no harm in using separate
branches and merging from time to time.  If Git allows you to, why not
take advantage of it.  After all that is one of the strongest points
about Git, it's branching and merging abilities.  I often find a lot of
useful information (about design decisions, choices) hidden in the
history.

> 
> > As far as I have seen, many projects work this way: Linux kernel, Git.
> 
> Linux kernel works via mail, just like Orgmode.

Not solely.  It depends on the developer.  Here are two random examples
from a Google search of "lkml pull request".

https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/9/4/184
https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/9/5/125

Actually if you read the messages above, the author refers to commit
hashes.  I think that is an extremely important advantage of a pulling
from remote branches over using git am, ensuring commit integrity.

Anyway, this discussion is way OT here.  So I'll shut up :).

Cheers,

-- 
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.