[Box Backup] Proposal: Merge pull requests automatically

[orzel at freehackers.org]

On 31/08/2015 23:13, Chris Wilson wrote:
> So what do you think, is it a good idea?

Hi all,

I don't want to seem overly pessimistic, but the fact that there's 
almost no resources devoted to the project makes me fear about this 
automatic merging stuff.

No resource makes it so that patches will never been checked, whether 
before or after. Automatic merging wont solve the problem of lacking 
resources, and probably makes it even worse, as unchecked stuff will be 
mainlined un remain so even if breaking things.

I haven't read/heard Peter's talk about community, but beware of 
beautiful words. All companies get it wrong thinking that a mailing 
list, a wiki and github will be enough to create a community. In my 
point of view, the real, main, big point to get a viable community is 
leadership. Technical facilities come second. Leadership means that 
someone with enough (codebase) knowledge and (pair) recognition is ready 
to take important decisions and most importantly to devote (lot of) time 
to the project. Yes, it also encompasses being able to deal nicely with 
people and to resolve possible conflicts in the community, but this is 
imho less important that recognition and time.

In this very particular case, trusting everybody based on test passing 
makes me wonder how reliable/complete those tests are... You're about to 
put a lot of trust not only in people, but also in those tests.

As a community member, i can tell you that my very top reason of 
worrying is the total lack of releases. No new feature is ok, but no 
maintenance is really frightening.

best regards,
-- 
Thomas Capricelli <orzel at freehackers.org>
http://www.freehackers.org/thomas/