Kakoune: Create a Kakoune organization on Github

[lenormf]

Hi,

I'd like to have a "Github Organization" for the project, as it would have a couple advantages:

• centralize all the repositories related to the same project in one group to allow better discovery: the kakoune, kakoune-golf and kakoune-website (which should have its own repositories to let it have its own issue tracker) could be listed on a single dedicated page, instead of being mixed with the other repositories of the owner

• allow regular contributors to use management tools such as https://waffle.io/ to allow better discovery of what issues they could fix or what general improvement they could make in the project, without navigating the issue tracker by themselves; the owner of the project would also have better visibility over pressing issues and their current implementation state

• have its members display a fancy Kakoune logo on their profile, which is one more way to help potentially new users discover the project through developers they follow, and is also something recruiters like to see when they screen candidates

Note that being part of the organization in no way equals having push access to the repository, members all have a specific set of access rights in it which are assigned to by the owner: read only, read write, full member, outside collaborator etc.

Thanks.

[robertmeta]

Another important benefit of this is if (at some far future date!) our benevolent dictator for life decides he doesn't want to maintain kakoune anymore, he can hand off the organization to someone else without everyone having to switch to a new fork.

[robertmeta]

One additional point (and a bit of a bump to this) is that it stops anyone from taking the organization name Kakoune which could end up very confusing.

[mawww]

I am on the fence about this one, on one hand I agree moving Kakoune to an organization would be nice, it would make Kakoune feel a bit more "official". But on the other hand, I am not sure I want my baby to fly to far away from its nest yet :).

[lenormf]

There's already a release out, so the left the nest, the baby has. Also you wouldn't lose any control over it, it would just give you more granularity.

As for the organization name, I have created kakoune-editor, which I think is better than just kakoune, as it's more descriptive. Kind of like what the Dolphin emulator did.

[robertmeta]

As @lenormf said -- the baby has a release, and this is just a new nest, still under your control.

[maximbaz]

@mawww on a related note, how do you feel about giving collaborator access to someone you trust to help with the load? There are currently 50 open PRs, a big part of them are code-complete and just waiting for a code review or to be merged straight away. Also, there are over 200 issues, some of which are not actionable and should just be closed.

In my mind, an obvious candidate for this role would be @lenormf.

[robertmeta]

over 200 issues, some of which are not actionable and should just be closed.

Currently, the community lacks another place for long-form communication on topics. Mailing list, discourse server with mailing list mode, etc. We have been discussing this in the IRC channel a bit. I will setup one just as a proof of concept and show it to mawww.

[maximbaz]

Yes, please do. At the very least we can close non-actionable discussion issues, and maybe label them for simpler navigation. Keep issues open that you want to fix and know how to fix, close everything else - it's not a problem to discuss things in a closed ticket and reopen them if they become actionable.

[robertmeta]

Using tickets for that secondary communication means is nice because it is all in one place, but it is kinda gross because conflates code based stuff with discussion based stuff, and allows no real way to have off-topic (community building) conversations. I will get it setup soon in the next day or two and link it here.

[lenormf]

I've set up a mailing list already, https://framalistes.org/sympa/info/kakoune-dev

[mawww]

I think a community managed mailing list would be nice. If one is created and people start using it, I'll subscribe with pleasure, I dont believe I need to have control/responsibility over that though, anybody sufficiently motivated can take care of it. (I created the IRC channel, but thats very low maintainance, and @lenormf has op access as well).

Regarding the pending PRs, they often hang because I have not made my mind of if I think they should go in, code review is simple, managing feature creep and trying to keep the design consistent is hard. Additionally, I have a bit less free time than I used to (those damn kids, who knew they were such a time sink :smile: ).

I'd like to keep last word on what goes in the repository, so I dont plan to give commit rights in the short term.

[robertmeta]

https://discuss.kakoune.com is up in a very beta-stage -- hopefully going go grow up into a great home for the user community -- feel free to play around with it (it has a mailing list mode and good mobile interface).

FYI @lenormf, I didn't set this up in response to your mailing list, I started working towards this on Aug 10th (date I registered kakoune.com). The timing of getting it up / talking to @mawww about it just happened to land about the same time.

[lenormf]

It seems that the mailing list provided by Discuss is for general purpose, I want one to exist for development-related discussions (experimental features, questions about the code, custom patches that have no place in upstream etc).

Also I'm just not sure creating another general purpose communication platform will provide anything that IRC doesn't already provide.

[Delapouite]

It's just a matter of creating a new "dev" category on Discuss. The added value over IRC is that you can post long messages, with code highlighting, links, tags…

Mailing lists are always a mess in comparison.

[robertmeta]

Also I'm just not sure creating another general purpose communication platform will provide anything that IRC doesn't already provide.

As @Delapouite said, long-messages, code highlighting, links, tags

I will add other benefits include images, formatting, mobile interface, web interface, mailing list mode, rss feeds, time-shifted (not real time like IRC), embedding and history.

[lenormf]

Since @mawww has decided the Github organisation would not be used in an official capacity, I've rebranded it as a “Community Organisation” (kakoune-editor). @mawww retains his seat as an owner, in case he decides to contribute to it in the future.

If any long term contributors want to get involved (create repositories etc.), let me know and I'll add you to it.