Re: Gitlab Migration

[Tim Cross]

Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru> writes:

> On 26.08.2021 20:59, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:
>> Many
>> don't use mail at all for development, and all they're used to is the
>> GitLab/Hub way of doing it.
>
> Email is used by virtually everyone (for example, to receive notifications 
> about
> others' actions or messages), what's "unusual" for many is sending patches 
> over
> email. Or inlining them in comments/messages.
>

I'm not sure this is true. I think virtually all developers are forced
to suffer email, but a gorwing number don't use it. Often, all the
discussions, notifications, comments etc are actually consumed via a
mobile 'app'. For these users, logging into their inbox is frustrating
and inconvenient because their inbox is full of pointless and old
messages/notifications/alerts they have already seen/received via other
channels. For these users, the primary reason they have an email address
is to have something to put into the 'login' box for web services they
use. Telling these users to use email to submit a patch is very similar
to me being told when I started using email that I had to send in a hard
copy via snail mail.

I love an email interface. Then again, I still miss newsgroups. I hate
web based 'groups' and avoid slack/discord whenever possible. However,
I'm an old white guy in his 60s and not representative of Emacs' future
even though I hope I still have some positive contributions to make.

We do need to look at how to support more modern/current engagement
models, but perhaps not at the expense of old proven ones. We need a
more flexible engagement model rather than replacement of the existing
one.