Hi folks,
Don't throw any tomatoes just yet! We've been going back and forth about using pull requests on GitHub for a long time. I'd like to propose that we slowly try an experiment. We've had a few outside contributions come in through pull requests, and it's worked just fine. At the same time, there are people who are more comfortable with sending patches to the list. So, even though it seems like it would be nice to have everyone work the same way, it seems like the two options aren't mutually exclusive.
I'm proposing that we allow people who want to use pull requests to try it out. Send pull requests, and other people who want to try pull requests can review them. If you don't like pull requests, don't use them, and someone will review and push like we do today. If you're on the fence, you can try it out, or not.
I don't love that this would cause us to split patch discussion across two places, but I think it's worth it as an experiment. I think it will help us iron out any kinks, and experiment with whether this is something we want to go forward with. I don't think forcing everyone to switch to pull requests (especially overnight) is a good idea, nor is ignoring the subject because it's controversial. This gets things moving, and I hope it will be like our Fedora vs. upstream gem thing, where trying to support both ends up making us more robust, versus needlessly distracting us.
I'd like to give this a try. Would anyone care to join me?
-- Matt