Re: Release Org 9.4.2

[Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com>]

Loris Bennett <loris.bennett@fu-berlin.de> writes:

> Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:
>
>> On Wednesday, 16 Dec 2020 at 13:04, Gustav Wikström wrote:
>>> But to be fair, the collaboration features of GitHub surely would be a
>>> BIG net positive if the goal is to attract contributions and gain a
>>> bigger mindshare.
>>
>> Not necessarily.  Some of us dislike web based tools intensely, in fact
>> anything that does not work well in Emacs ;-).
>>
>> In practice, I will not participate in projects that, for instance, use
>> slack or discourse or ... Requiring the use of github for interaction
>> would lead to a reduction in the (albeit rather small) contributions I
>> make to this project.  A mailing list (or nntp) plus git is perfect for
>> my working methods.
>
> But even if a project is hosted on GitHub, you can still interact with
> it just via Emacs, it is still Git after all.
>
> One project I have made minor contributions to is EasyBuild, a framework
> for managing the building and installation of (mainly) scientific
> software, which is hosted on GitHub:
>
>   https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild
>
> However, I can interact with it via Magit, and even if I don't use
> Emacs, the project has command-line tools which allow the creation of a
> pull request without the me having to know anything about GitHub or even
> git:
>
>   https://easybuild.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Integration_with_GitHub.html#submitting-pull-requests-new-pr
>
> Obviously the EasyBuild people have put quite a lot of work into making
> this possible and it is mainly to allow people to contribute
> self-contained "recipes" for building particular pieces of software,
> rather than work on the main code of the framework.
>
> To be honest, last time I tried, responding to comments on pull-requests
> didn't work so well via Emacs, so unfortunately I ended up having to
> using the web-interface.
>
> But on the other hand, they also have a mailing list, so there is
> something for everyone ;-)
>

A lot of the key Git features are available via command line and other
tools. This is how I always interact with Github repositories.

Unfortunately, many other aspects of Github are not available via
command line or are only available in a severely crippled manner, so
people are forced to use the web UI which has components and
functionality built o technology which is in conflict with the FSF and
GNU philosophy, guidelines and key goals. Some people have been working
on Github to get changes which would change this situation, but until
they do, it simply is not an option.

The BIG problem with many of the alternative 'forum' technologies is
that very few of them use free software. Some of them may be open
source, but that is not the same as free (libre) software. The other
problem is many of them force the use of a web UI, which many, including
myself, don't like and which rarely works well in Emacs itself
(primarily due to the reliance on Javascript).

--
Tim Cross