Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/9] Incremental po/git.pot update and new l10n workflow

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 May 2022 15:49:17 -0700

Daniel Santos <[email-masked]> writes:

> It is worth discussing this.
>
> Also, I don't believe Github issue is the proper way to discuss about
> this in the beginning. It cannot be expected to make everyone on board
> with this modification of workflowm being discussed on a web service
> website obscure issue, that needs login. We have a mailing list that
> is to be used for this purpose.
>
> I feel less part of this community, with important issues happening on
> Github issues.

While I understand the sentiment, after reading that issues page, I
actually have a totally different impression.

Step back and take a deep breath, and let me ask you the same
question under a few hypothetical settings:

 * Imagine that Ævar have been working on this series alone, without
   help from Jiang.  He did some brainstorming with himself to
   polish the ideas, cleaned up the code, etc. in his own head,
   perhaps with help from some automated tools and CI.  And after
   working for a month, sent this as a patch series to be reviewed
   to the list?  Do you feel excluded for not being invited for an
   early review?  I would guess not.  I certainly don't feel
   excluded myself.

 * What if he, during the course of the above month working on this
   topic, asked for a help from a specific person of his choice?
   Perhaps Jiang was visiting the same part of the world and they
   talked about the series in person, private over a glass of beer
   or two?  Do you feel excluded that you didn't have a chance to
   join this discussion?  I would guess not.  I certainly don't feel
   excluded myself.

 * What if that exchange of ideas and help to polish the series was
   done virtually, and the medium of choice between the two happened
   to be GitHub issues?  Do you now suddenly feel excluded?  I do
   not feel excluded myself, but do you?

The way I read that issues page, I think the exchange between them
falls squarely into that category.  They are not pretending to make
"project decisions".  They are preparing a proposal to bring forward
to the project participants.  During the course of their conversation,
they may express their opinions on how better to serve the audience
as if they were a fact, but that is something you can dispute once
the proposal comes out to the list.

In other words, we should treat this just another patch series to be
reviewed, instead of "two important people in Git i18n/l10n are
presenting fait-accompli to the community".   I do not see a problem
in that.

As long as they do not duck a valid question about anything in the
series with "well that has been decided long ago while we prepared
this series and it is too late to change now", that is.

And I do not think anything like that has happened yet so far.

So, yes, please discuss and see a consensus form among i18n/l10n
stakeholders.  Perhaps some of the design decisions they made are
based on different values from you have (e.g. you highly value the
line numbers, while they justify the removal with reduced size) and
it is a fair discussion to have if the decisions the patch series
makes is based on the right balance between pros-and-cons.

Thanks.