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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Am 16.08.25 um 15:09 schrieb Peter
Tribble:<br>
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cite="mid:CAEgYsbEa6G2+ucKax1pGg+rhHk__jproKEWvJ9hnwa+NR4WeVg@mail.gmail.com">
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<div dir="ltr">On Fri, Aug 15, 2025 at 11:12 PM Joshua M.
Clulow via illumos-developer <<a
href="mailto:developer@lists.illumos.org"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">developer@lists.illumos.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">On
Fri, 15 Aug 2025 at 14:56, Atiq Rahman <<a
href="mailto:atiqcx@gmail.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">atiqcx@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
> Thanks to both of you.<br>
<br>
You're welcome!<br>
<br>
> May I suggest we move <a
href="https://www.illumos.org/projects"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.illumos.org/projects</a>
to Github or GitLab?<br>
> Old tools look daunting and will essentially
alienate new contributors. Potential contributors are
mostly using Github/Gitlab IMO.<br>
<br>
It has certainly been considered in the past, but it
really isn't<br>
clear that merely changing to a different bug tracker or
code review<br>
system is going to result in a significant wave of
serious new<br>
contributions.<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The telling word there is "merely". It's not just
about substituting one piece<br>
such as the bug tracker for another, it's about
replacing the whole workflow<br>
wholesale.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>And if you were to pitch contribution to a newly
interested person, which of<br>
</div>
<div>the following would be more likely to succeed?<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>1. Hi! Yeah, set up a completely new account over
here. Fill in a unique<br>
</div>
<div>bugtracker over there. Follow a non-standard set of
processes to create<br>
</div>
<div>a change. Interact with a mailing list, which may or
may not get back to<br>
</div>
<div>you. Interact again with our bugtracker. Once you've
got that far, interact<br>
with a different mailing list, and if you're lucky your
change might get<br>
</div>
<div>committed.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>or:<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>2. Hi! Yeah, just use the exact same process used for
millions of other<br>
</div>
<div>projects, on a system you've probably already using.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>No contest, really. Our existing processes, systems,
and workflow impose<br>
</div>
<div>significant barriers to contribution, which might go
some way to explain<br>
</div>
<div>why we don't get any new contributors.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>The heavyweight nature of our processes is also a
major barrier that<br>
</div>
<div>discourages contributions by existing members of the
community. If we<br>
</div>
<div>want illumos to improve, then barriers must be
lowered.<br>
</div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
The hurdle we actually have is that working on an
operating system is<br>
itself often daunting. It's a large code base that has
been around<br>
for a long time. It's not the kind of software that
most people work<br>
on. There is a sort of implicit assumption, I guess,
that it's going<br>
to be very difficult instead of merely a different kind
of work. This<br>
isn't actually the case, of course: the kernel is just a
big C<br>
program! Anybody can learn enough to contribute, if
they're<br>
motivated.<br>
<br>
I think if you're already keen to contribute, it's
unlikely, on<br>
balance, that the bug tracker is going to be the reason
that you<br>
don't.<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
It won't be *the* only reason, but along with other
impediments, it will<br>
</div>
be *a* reason.<br>
<div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
The problematic process you are referring to is for illumos-gate.<br>
For OpenIndiana we have a very simple process using github. You only
need to clone our oi-userland repository to a local build machine
and can start right away. Nevertheless the number of OI maintainers
is very low and new contributors are rare.<br>
<br>
Andreas
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<div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature">-Peter Tribble<br>
<a href="http://www.petertribble.co.uk/" target="_blank"
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- <a href="http://ptribble.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">http://ptribble.blogspot.com/</a></div>
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