Subject: [RFH] Issues and Contributions to friendly third-party projects

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2025 08:34:26 -0800

After seeing a issue report on git-scm.com (and remembering number
of issues reported on friendly third-party projects on this list
and getting redirected to elsewhere), it may probably make sense to
document who they are, what they do, and how to contact them, in the
same document that drove these contributors to this list in the
first place.

I am still not sure which of our document is the best place to do
so, but no matter where it eventually goes, it would be better to
first agree on 

 - if doing so is a good idea to begin with (such a list in a
   document will incur maintenance cost)

 - who to include on such a list (the list will become useless if it
   includes everything on earth that claims to be related to Git;
   where do we draw the line?)

 - how the list will be maintained (are we responsible to ping them?
   will they update us to keep their entry from going stale?)

As a discussion starter, here is what I added to the source to "A
note from the maintainer" message I send out every once in a while
(https://lore.kernel.org/git/[email-masked]/ is the last
one I sent out).

Comments?  Corrections?  Opinions?

Thanks.

 MaintNotes | 40 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 40 insertions(+)

diff --git a/MaintNotes b/MaintNotes
index 743e3b6..ebda282 100644
--- a/MaintNotes
+++ b/MaintNotes
@@ -29,6 +29,13 @@ As an anti-spam measure, the mailing list software rejects messages
 that are not text/plain and drops them on the floor.  If you are a
 GMail user, you'd want to make sure "Plain text mode" is checked.
 
+The mailing list, while welcoming non code contributions like bug
+reports, mostly discusses updating contents of the source tree to the
+(core) Git software, including documentation "git help" gives.
+Non-code contributions may have places other than the mailing list
+that are more preferrable.  See the "other places" section near the
+end.
+
 Before sending patches, please read Documentation/SubmittingPatches
 and Documentation/CodingGuidelines to familiarize yourself with the
 project convention.
@@ -293,3 +300,36 @@ own authoritative repository and maintainers:
 When sending proposed updates and fixes to these parts of the system,
 please base your patches on these trees, not git.git (the former two
 even have different directory structures).
+
+
+* Other places.
+
+As the Git ecosystem has grown larger over the years, there are
+documentation sites and third-party tools that have been created and
+maintained by friendly third-parties.  Reporting issues with them to
+the main mailing list is still welcomed by the list participants, but
+most likely you will be asked to contact these third-parties directly.
+
+ - git-scm website (https://www.git-scm.com/) is maintained directly
+   on its GitHub repository and its issues are managed there.
+
+   https://github.com/git/git-scm.com/issues
+   https://github.com/git/git-scm.com/?tab=readme-ov-file#contributing
+
+ - Git for Windows (https://gitforwindows.org/) is a project that
+   packages (core) Git software with some other goodies for the
+   Windows platform.  They manage their own issues list and their
+   changes are managed directly on GitHub via pull requests, focused
+   primarily on Windows specific issues and their additions (like
+   Windows installer).
+
+   https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/wiki/How-to-participate
+   https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues
+
+ - The online edition of ProGit Book hosted at git-scm.com/book/ is
+   managed by the Pro Git book folks, and they maintain their work and
+   issues at their GitHub repository.
+
+   https://github.com/progit/progit2/issues
+   https://github.com/progit/progit2/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md
+