PEP 581 - Using GitHub Issues

Hi there !

I wanted to discuss about the PEP 581 - Moving to GitHub issues.

What are your thoughts/point of view on the PEP and the idea to centralize the issues on GitHub?

@Mariatta @Julien

Well I wrote the PEP so obviously I want PEP 581 to be accepted :grin:
But nothing can happen until we figure out Python governance.
If you have more specific question about the PEP, please ask.

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bugs.python.org has network (TLS) issue for 1 year:

@EWDurbin plans to upgrade the server to fix the issue at the end of the month.

Yeah I’ve seen the discussion over on IRC about it and I agree

But when we get a new governance (cc @Mariatta and @julien for poiting it out) and we can decide if we want to do it or not, would you agree with this change ?

The upgrade is now scheduled Dec 21 :wink: Python Infrastructure Status - bugs.python.org maintenance

What “change” do you mean? If the PEP gets accepted then it’s going to happen. :grin: The question is whether the PEP gets accepted.

I was talking about the PEP :grin: Sorry still getting used to this, I’ll get there eventually :wink: So yeah, I was asking about the PEP, like what are you thinking ? :smile:

We’re not thinking anything right now. @Mariatta wrote the PEP but it has not been extensively discussed yet beyond an initial discussion at the language summit this year and a little bit of discussion afterwards.

That’s exactly why I started this post! It’s to discuss about it :wink:

We (Me and @julien )have a few ideas on how to make it happen

Ah, then you just want to talk to @mariatta then about PEP details. Otherwise you probably won’t have a discussion with others as most of us are occupied with governance stuff (i.e. I won’t be contributing to this thread anymore as I don’t have the time to worry about any PEPs right now).

If you have additional ideas not yet mentioned in the PEP, please describe, so I can see whether it can be incorporated to the PEP.

So yeah, me and @julien were at the APIDays conference in Paris and we were talking about your PEP and we came across some GitHub employees. We talked with them for a while and we mentioned the PEP and the fact that we would need to migrate a huge amount of issues to github.
I explained that it would require a custom service because the public API that github provides doesn’t allow custom creation dates for example, because we would like to keep the original creation dates.

They explained that they had custom services, and that, for example, have one to create issues from a Google doc. So making one for docs.python.org shouldn’t be a problem and from what they said they would definetly say yes. I have two email adresses I need to send emails to to get news about it and to get in relations with the person who handles Open Source relations at github.

Now obviously it’ll be a while before the PEP will be accepted so that is why we won’t send the email anytime soon but it’s a good thing to keep in mind that GitHub should be ready to help us migrate

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Thank you for this info! Very useful to know that they have custom services, so we can do bulk exports from bpo -> GitHub via google doc.

I wasn’t even thinking of custom creation dates, at least I don’t think it really matter :thinking:
While the plan is to move only some issues to GitHub (only open and active ones), there is no plan to completely shutdown bpo, it will be made readonly.
My expectation is the issue on GitHub will contain whatever data needed from bpo, and a linkback to bpo to get complete history.

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So actually no, I was giving an example with Google docs of a custom import system they made with their private API

So we could see with them to make one for us :wink: so it would be from bpo to GitHub for sure, but we can figure out the details as we go. I’ll be pleased to help when the time comes !

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Thanks! Yup if they can build it for us for free I’m all for it :smile:

Once we have new governance in place, first thing I’m going to ask them is to review and pronounce on PEP 581.

Perfect ! Well in that case I will contact them once we are close to get a new governance so I can have the OpenSource person contact ready for you

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I suggest that the proposed resolution to the A GitHub account should not be a requirement requirement should be included in the PEP before it’s submitted for approval.

Or at least that it’s made explicit that the transition won’t happen until a resolution is in place.

You mean that we need to include that a GH account is required to create new issues in GH if the PEP passes?
The thing is, you need an account on bugs.python.org and GH so might as well remove one

Context is in this paragraph: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0581/#a-github-account-should-not-be-a-requirement

By moving to GitHub, a contributor now needs to have GitHub account and agree to GitHub’s terms of service, and that makes contributing to Python more restrictive. There is a history of GitHub being blocked and restricted in some places of the world. One benefit of keeping bpo around is that folks can still contribute by uploading a patch in bpo (and someone else will have to convert the patch to GitHub PR).

If bpo becomes readonly, we need to figure out a different way for those who for whatever reason cannot access GitHub, to still contribute.

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BTW, if people have any idea of how to resolve this, do tell :slight_smile:

My current ideas:

  • Now that we have experience building out blurb-it and miss-islington aka bots that write codes to CPython, I think it is possible to come up with another web form that accepts the .patch file, and the bot can create the pull request using that patch.
    This solves the issue for people who wants to contribute by uploading patches but unable to create GitHub account.
    But we need to figure out how the CLA check will work in this case. The plan is to start using cla-assistant quite soon. Not sure how cla-assistant will work for this situation.
  • Similar to the above, we can come up with a web form so people can submit issues there, and it gets automatically transformed into an issue on GitHub by the bot.
    This solves the issue for people who wants to report bugs but unable to create GitHub account. This form should require their name and email address. The bot will use the email address to send updates about the issue.
  • Create a new mailing list python-issues. Any activities on GitHub (issue created, issue commented, etc) will be posted to the mailing list. So people without access to GitHub can still follow along.
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