[QGIS-Developer] QGIS repository management

[Sandro Santilli]

Hello all,
today I was finally able to more clearly see the problem that frustrates
me everytime a take part to a new QGIS bugfixing drive, and I would like
to share it hoping to find a solution togheter.

The main problem:

  - Despite having been granted write access to the QGIS repository in 2012
    [1], I cannot effectively use that power today

It's not just me, I think, but I cannot tell for sure because the configuration
of the infrastructure currently in use (github) is not available for me to see
and the governance page on the official QGIS website does not contain this
information [2]. This being blind of course adds up to my frustration.

>From experience, I know that the reason why I cannot write to the QGIS
repository is because "branch protection" is active (for the master branch
at least) and a set of conditions are required to merge a PR, namely:

  - All CI tests need to pass.

  - Someone else (I don't know from which group of people) needs to
    approve the proposed change.

While I do the above condition being a useful indication for "QGIS
core developers" to decide whether to accept or not a change request,
I find them representing an obstacle way more often than a service,
and in particular:

1. CI is often broken for reasons that are independent from the proposed
   change.

2. An aberration of the "review" condition is that a change proposed by a
   contributor and approved by me can be merged but a change proposed by
   me and approved by the same contributor can not be merged, effectively
   giving me ("core QGIS committer") less power than the power of a random
   contributor.

The rules described above are not found from the governance page [2]
so it isn't easy for me to propose changes because I don't have a clear
picture of current rules (like, I believe some people in QGIS can
self-approve PRs but dunno how to tell who and why).

I would personally welcome (and be able to help taking) the following actions:

  1. Clearly document the roles and rules on the website

  2. Allow those with "write access" to self-approve PRs

  3. Define rules by which "write access" privileges to the repository
     are revoked

Thanks for having read this in full, and I hope to hear your position
on the matter.  Happy hacking !


[1] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-developer/2012-October/022715.html
[2] https://qgis.org/en/site/getinvolved/governance/governance.html

--strk;

  Libre GIS consultant/developer
  https://strk.kbt.io/services.html