State of Pidgin: Attracting and Maintaining New Contributors

[Matěj Cepl]

On 2017-10-03, 05:58 GMT, Gary Kramlich wrote:
> As anyone who's followed the project knows, we've been 
> suffering from a lack of contributors for quite some time now.
>
> I believe there are many reasons to this.  Many of which I'm trying to
> address in these emails.  I've already taken steps for a few of the other
> ones.

I will be the one who says it, so that you may have somebody to 
shout at:

    Git*b (that's GitHub, or GitLab if you prefer free solution, 
    as I do)

    and git.

I don’t want for a second discuss git/mercurial on its technical 
merits, but I am looking around me and I see that developers 
spoke and the answer is git.

I saw like two or more years all my Java colleagues (I work for 
Red Hat, and for me it means mostly JBoss people) run over to 
GitHub and they don’t seem to look back.  I am not sure whether 
I understand where tea leaves go, but it feels to me that with 
the current whatever-is-going-in-Oracle-around-Java we may see
another mad rush towards GitHub in other parts of the Java world 
soon.

I work closely with Mozilla people, and although the main 
Firefox repository is still Hg, all new development is on GitHub 
(e.g., https://github.com/servo/servo and 
https://github.com/mozilla/).

The same goes for Python. https://docs.python.org/devguide/ 
points to https://github.com/python/cpython as main repository.  
Enough said.

By insisting on using minority technology, you are pushing the 
project to a weird http://bitbucket.org and out of the 
mainstream. If you want to lower barriers of entry, then this is 
one (relatively, comparing to othes) low-hanging fruit to pick.

I could write about this way more, but I don't think it is 
necessary. All arguments were voiced, heard, and perhaps now is 
the time to reasses them.

After supporting host-your-own-data movement, burning endless 
hours on maintaining necessary software, being very happy with 
my local installation of Bugzilla, I finally gave up and 
https://gitlab.com/m2crypto/m2crypto/ is for last couple of 
years on GitLab and I don't regret it. It is where my 
users/contributors find me.

Best,

Matěj
-- 
http://matej.ceplovi.cz/blog/, Jabber: mcepl<at>ceplovi.cz
GPG Finger: 3C76 A027 CA45 AD70 98B5  BC1D 7920 5802 880B C9D8
 
If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was
bad, he should see how bad it is with representation.