[Mesa-dev] [PATCH v2] docs: Document GitLab merge request process (email alternative)

[Eric Engestrom]

On Friday, 2018-12-07 10:19:23 +0100, Erik Faye-Lund wrote:
> On Wed, 2018-12-05 at 21:46 -0600, Jason Ekstrand wrote:
> > On Wed, Dec 5, 2018 at 7:05 PM Jordan Justen <
> > jordan.l.justen at intel.com> wrote:
> > > On 2018-12-05 15:44:18, Jason Ekstrand wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Dec 5, 2018 at 5:32 PM Jordan Justen <
> > > jordan.l.justen at intel.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > -<h2 id="mailing">Mailing Patches</h2>
> > > > > +<h2 id="submit">Submitting Patches</h2>
> > > > >
> > > > >  <p>
> > > > > -Patches should be sent to the mesa-dev mailing list for
> > > review:
> > > > > +Patches may be submitted to the Mesa project by
> > > > > +<a href="#mailing">email</a> or with a
> > > > > +GitLab <a href="#merge-request">merge request</a>. To prevent
> > > > > +duplicate code review, only use one method to submit your
> > > changes.
> > > > > +</p>
> > > > >
> > > > 
> > > > Do we want to require a cover-letter to be sent to the ML? 
> > > Ideally, we'd
> > > > just have a bot that makes one every time someone submits a MR
> > > and sends it
> > > > to the list.  Maybe someone just needs to write that bot.
> > > > 
> > > > > +
> > > > > +<h3 id="mailing">Mailing Patches</h3>
> > > > > +
> > > > > +<p>
> > > > > +Patches may be sent to the mesa-dev mailing list for review:
> > > > >  <a href="
> > > https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-dev">
> > > > >  mesa-dev at lists.freedesktop.org</a>.
> > > > >  When submitting a patch make sure to use
> > > > > @@ -217,8 +228,63 @@ disabled before sending your patches.
> > > (Note that you
> > > > > may need to contact
> > > > >  your email administrator for this.)
> > > > >  </p>
> > > > >
> > > > > +<h3 id="merge-request">GitLab Merge Requests</h3>
> > > > > +
> > > > > +<p>
> > > > > +  <a href="https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa">GitLab</a
> > > > Merge
> > > > > +  Requests (MR) can also be used to submit patches for Mesa.
> > > > > +</p>
> > > > > +
> > > > > +<p>
> > > > > +  If the MR may have interest for most of the Mesa community,
> > > you can
> > > > > +  send an email to the mesa-dev email list including a link to
> > > the MR.
> > > > > +  Don't send the patch to mesa-dev, just the MR link.
> > > 
> > > Regarding the cover-letter, I put in this weasel worded sentence.
> > > Should it instead say this is required and that it should be a git
> > > format-patch generated cover letter?
> > 
> > I didn't read far enough....  No, I don't think we need to require
> > git-send-email formatted.
> >  
> > > Or, should we drop it entirely and assume we'll get an automated
> > > way
> > > to send an email to the list whenever a new MR is opened?
> > > 
> > > Relatedly, I think it might be possible to enable an irc channel to
> > > be
> > > notified about pushes and MR's. Not sure if it'd be a good idea, or
> > > maybe too noisy.
> > 
> > We should totally have an IRC bot.  We had one for wayland and weston
> > when I was working on those and it was great.  If it notifies us of
> > every change, it may be too much but if it dumps something in the
> > channel for every new MR, that shouldn't be bad at all.
> 
> Automated emails (and perhaps IRC bot) would be really nice.

Agreed. Email would be great to help with the transition.
There's work currently being done on GitLab to allow for mailing lists
to be notified; this should cover 'new MR' as well.
If we need this feature before GitLab is done, it should be possible to
write a bot using the webhooks, just needs someone to take the time to
do it :)

For IRC, there's already some integration, but it's limited to notifying
about git pushes for now:
https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/integrations/irker.html

There's an open issue about adding more events, but it hasn't seen much
activity:
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/7965

> Even better if it could be hooked up to scripts/get_reviewer.pl, and
> automatically CC "the right people".

Side note, I've been rewriting that script, although I need to send v2
out at some point:
https://patchwork.freedesktop.org/patch/226256/

I would be trivial to hook that into a bot we'd write, but I don't think
GitLab has support for something like this. I just opened an issue about
adding support directly in GitLab:
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/55035

> Perhaps a we can also somehow map emails to irc nicks?

We maintain such a list on the wiki already:
https://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/WhosWho/

We could add this mapping to a file, but how would you use it? Are you
suggesting a bot would directly query people on irc for each MR matching
their REVIEWERS group?

I think direct email + mailing list + irc channel would be enough there,
direct irc query feels too spammy.