Re: [gpsd-users] Problems with the gpsd website move

[Ed W]

On 26/02/2012 19:39, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> Ed W<address@hidden>:
> > I don't see why it's important that mailing lists are handled by the
> > same system that handles the source code?  Why not delegate mailing
> > lists to some other solution?
> So devs don't have to manage multiple different sets of credentials.
> The friction from this is constant and annoying.

Your counter argument is almost surreal..  Are you seriously saying that 
you would prefer a suboptimal solution for the things that you do every 
day, rather than create one new login to a service that you will 
probably only use very occasionally?

Probably I'm mis-understanding your concern because I think you must be 
worried about some aspect that I'm just not getting?  Look, I will 
sketch out one possible solution below so that you can knock it down and 
show your concerns (otherwise I don't think I can contribute effectively 
to a solution if I don't see the piece which is bothering you).  The 
snag with this approach is that you might think I'm over-committed to 
the suggestions here - please take the specifics as just an example


1) Github for sourcecode control, static hosting, wiki and issues
2) Either the status quo for mailing lists, or one of the big name 
alternatives.  I'm going to chuck in Google groups as a suggestion here 
because it's controversial...
3) Use Lastpass for password management. For bonus marks get a Yubikey ( 
http://www.yubico.com/yubikey ) for very high security of your password 
database (and other things - they really are very cool for very little 
money)

You will need three security tokens for this.
a) SSH key for sourcecode checkin
b) Github login for management of web based things in github.
c) Google login for Google Groups

You clearly need a) for nearly all git solutions, so this is kind of a 
given.

Based on the usage numbers, b) is something that very large numbers of 
people already own - plenty more than nongnu logins for example.  
However, the distribution may be skewed in the case of your developer 
base.  I think it's a non issue because in return for creating one more 
login token (which your browser can  remember for you), you gain 
extremely powerful patch submission support.  Users only need logins 
*if* they want to use github features, not to simply access the code, 
fork it or otherwise contribute.

Finally, most people already have a google login for some reason or 
another, so I guess that's easily sorted?  I personally really hated 
Google Groups until either they changed their interface, or I worked it 
out...  Firstly it *does* support +subscribe/+unsubscribe mail 
destinations so that arbitrary users can signup *without* themselves 
needing a google login.  Secondly if you *do* have a google login and 
signup to the group that way, then it's still no problem to signup and 
have all your mail delivered to your preferred off-google mail account.  
So basically only the mail admins need a google login.  I'm the admin 
for one group on Google Groups - so far I only needed to login once in 
about 4 years to do some maintenance...


All in all I really don't see that there are any significant problems 
caused by additional login tokens in any of the above?  Users will need 
very few.  Devs need only logins to very popular options.  I believe the 
static pages on github can be managed through a git repo (which is neat 
and eases backups) - this eliminates one more tool/login for general 
tasks - oh and you can use a vanity domain name also: 
http://pages.github.com/


It seems like you could migrate to github by:
- Download existing html site into your local src code directory
- Put html site under git version management
- Create new github page
- Git push the html up to github
- Git push the main src code up
- Setup issue tracking if you want it
- Err... apart from finessing the above, and setting up redirects, I 
think that's actually about it?


I personally really like the idea of managing nearly everything as a git 
repo!  For my private projects I use gitolite, and at work we use git 
for deployment of code to webservers.

OK, so something about the above is not working for you.  Can you 
describe so that I can (hopefully) help fix it?  I get a sense that 
there is possibly just "fear of the unknown" here and in fact this type 
of setup could work very nicely for you?

All the best

Ed W