Re: [PATCH v5 1/2] documentation: add tutorial for first contribution

From: Jonathan Tan <jonathantanmy@google.com>
Date: May 8, 2019, 19:53 UTC
Message-ID: <20190508195325.98698-1-jonathantanmy@google.com>
In-Reply-To: <20190508185807.GA14000@google.com>

Show 21 quoted lines

> > And "official" is a phrase I have trouble with in this context.  A
> > mirror does not have to be blessed as official; that's the point of
> > a mirror---anybody can make one to help users with better
> > connectivity or availability, as long as its users trust the mirror
> > maintainer for mirror's correctness and freshness.
> 
> You're right and I'll remove it. However, I've seen at least one
> instance of confusion over Git's lack of an "official" mirror (over on
> #git on Freenode). I'd like to rephrase this to explain the reasoning
> behind having multiple mirrors, none of which are official.
> 
> To that end, I propose replacing the phrase with "one of the best places
> to clone from is this mirror on GitHub." followed by the clone command
> to git/git, then followed by:
> 
> 	NOTE: As Git is a distributed version control, the Git project also
> 	follows a distributed model. There is no central official mirror; any
> 	mirror which you can reasonably trust is being kept correct and fresh to
> 	the Git source distributed by the Git maintainer is fine to work from.
> 
> What do we think?

In the interest of avoiding mailing list churn, I think we should not bother with explaining what an "official" mirror is right now, as long as we already have steps that a newcomer can take (which we do). Someone else can add it later if they wish.

For me, the "official" mirrors are whatever is listed in the latest "A note from the maintainer" (e.g. [1]). Even if we want to link to this or replicate part of its contents, I think we can do it after this patch is merged.

(Also, with that paragraph, I don't think a newcomer should be expected to know what mirror is reasonably trusted.)

[1] https://public-inbox.org/git/xmqqwolmcvyb.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/

> Alternatively, if the desire is to just be done with it, I have no
> problem with Junio rewording however he feels is best and otherwise
> applying this patch - if there is value in reducing the churn on the
> mailing list for this patch.

This sounds good to me too.