Re: [DISCUSSION] Growing the Git community

> During the Virtual Git Contributors' Summit, Dscho brought up the topic of
> "Inclusion & Diversity". We discussed ideas for how to make the community
> more welcoming to new contributors of all kinds. Let's discuss some of
> the ideas we talked about, and some that have been growing since.
> 
> Feel free to pick apart all of the claims I make below. This is based
> on my own experience and opinions. It should be a good baseline
> for us to all arrive with valuable action items.
> 
> I have CC'd some of the people who were part of that discussion. Sorry
> if I accidentally left someone out.
> 
> I. Goals and Perceived Problems
> 
> As a community, our number one goal is for Git to continue to be the best
> distributed version control system. At minimum, it should continue to be
> the most widely-used DVCS. Towards that goal, we need to make sure Git is
> the best solution for every kind of developer in every industry. The
> community cannot do this without including developers of all kinds. This
> means having a diverse community, for all senses of the word: Diverse in
> physical location, gender, professional status, age, and others.
> 
> In addition, the community must continue to grow, but members leave the
> community on a regular basis for multiple reasons. New contributors must
> join and mature within the community or the community will dwindle. Without
> dedicating effort and attention to this, natural forces may result in the
> community being represented only by contributors working at large tech
> companies focused on the engineering systems of very large groups.
> 
> It is worth noting that this community growth must never be at the cost
> of code quality. We must continue to hold all contributors to a high
> standard so Git stays a stable product.
> 
> Here are some problems that may exist within the Git community and may
> form a barrier to new contributors entering:
> 
> 1. Discovering how to contribute to Git is non-obvious.
> 
> 2. Submitting to a mailing list is a new experience for most developers.
>    This includes the full review and discussion process.
> 
> 3. The high standards for patch quality are intimidating to new contributors.
> 
> 4. Some people do not feel comfortable engaging in a community without
>    a clear Code of Conduct. This discomfort is significant and based on real
>    experiences throughout society.
> 
> 5. Since Git development happens in a different place than where users
>     acquire the end product, some are not aware that they can contribute.