On Fri, 2025-01-24 at 13:05 +0100, Jonas Smedegaard wrote: > Hi Christoph, > > Quoting Christoph J. Scherr (2025-01-24 12:13:16) > > Hello, > > > > As someone just starting out with Debian, I'd like to share my perspective > > on > > this discussion. > > > > I only recently contacted the welcome team and have been following the > > mailing > > lists while waiting for my salsa account approval. From what I've seen so > > far, > > Debian's development process can be quite challenging to understand as a > > newcomer. > > > > In my opinion, having a more intuitive web interface through a code forge > > like > > GitLab would lower the barrier to entry for potential contributors. I > > believe > > that normalizing merge requests would particularly benefit contributors from > > younger generations, who are more familiar with these modern development > > workflows. Exploring the BTS is, for me at least, more confusing for me than > > exploring a git repository with issues and merge requests on salsa. > > > > This is my first email to the lists. I hope these thoughts are relevant and > > helpful to the discussion. > > Welcome! > > You certainly make a relevant point, and I believe that I understand how > that point is central for this discussion. > > What troubles me, however, is if that is the only point deemed central > to this discussion. > > Yes, it is easier to use tooling that we are used to. Yes, it helps > collaboration around our preferred tooling if user interfaces are as > user friendly as possible. I think we can all agree on that, in > isolation. > > I think we can also all agree, that the BTS is not as globally familiar > as Github issue tracking facilities, nor as pleasing and welcoming and > intuitive to use especially for people oriented towards web interfaces. > > I don't challenge any of those observations - I agree with them. > > What I have a problem with is collaboration optimized *only* towards the > needs of newcomers. > > I find the BTS highly valuable *despite* it being unwelcoming, not > because I come from a different time where its design is somehow a bliss > to work with. > > I find non-webby git interactions highly valuable *despite* it being > less intuitive than web-based user interfaces and workflows. > > We each have a comfort zone, and an understanding of benefits and > qualities of the tooling we are familiar with, and when we engage in > collaboration we may get challenged about that. But finding the ideal > ways to collaborate is a complex assessment, not one that benefits from > reducing the options to a binary "does it raise the bar for newcomers?" > question, in my opinion. > > I would love to collaborate with you, but when our ways of working are > different, I would like to look at how our different toolings are > helping each of us (the comfort zones of you and me), our product (the > packages etc. that we are working on concretely) and our project (how > our ways of working may affect others in Debian). It feels to me that > this conversation reduces that conversation to "what is best for > newcomers is best for Debian" and I am not convinced that that is a > sensible reduction. > > Hope that makes sense. > > - Jonas >
Hello Jonas, I did not mean that the BTS has no value. Quite the opposite in fact: Without a method to trace bugs globally, there would be chaos. This is a complex topic, I just wanted to add my stance on this particular point. Writing a Pro/Con list might be a good idea, but I am not proficient enough in both the BTS and GitLab to do so. Greetings Christoph -- * Christoph J. Scherr - Student * Website: https://www.cscherr.de
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