How best to submit new port to maintainer, in a world of Github?

[Lawrence Velázquez]

> On Nov 26, 2016, at 6:25 PM, A. Karl Kornel <karl at kornel.us> wrote:
> 
> I have a question about how best to deal with submitting a port update
> to an existing maintainer, in the new Git setup.
> 
> The port in question is "libvirt", which has Ryan as maintainer, but
> also has openmaintainer listed.

The "openmaintainer" policy concerns other committers and is not
something you have to worry about.

> I would like to know the best way of submitting an updated Portfile,
> while also notifying the maintainer.
> 
> I thought of four different options.  I say "the maintainer" instead
> of "Ryan" because I'm trying to think of an option would work for as
> many cases as possible.
> 
> 1. I could email the maintainer directly, but that seems too "closed"
>    to me.

Yes, public methods are preferred so that feedback and discussion are
available for others to reference in the future.

> 2. I could put in a Trac ticket, but is that the best way for the
>    future?

Trac remains fully supported. In fact, as far as notifications go, Trac
is the best option because Cc-ing maintainers guarantees that they will
be emailed. Plus, you can Cc maintainers without GitHub accounts
(although they will have to create a GitHub account to log into Trac).

Depending on one's feelings about email, this could also be considered
the worst option.

> 3. I could open the Pull request on Github, but I don't know if I have
>    access to notify the maintainer directly.  It's probably possible,
>    but would that work for every other maintainer?

GitHub users can receive notifications if you @-mention them in PR
conversation text or if a PR is assigned to them. But note that email
notifications are easily disabled in GitHub settings; the responsiveness
of users who do this will depend on how frequently they check GitHub.
And, naturally, you cannot @-mention a maintainer who does not have
a GitHub account.

> 4. I could open a Pull request on Github, and then email the
>    maintainer separately, but the maintainer might get mad that
>    I didn't use Trac.

I would not worry about this. Some contributors will insist on making
submissions through PRs, and we all just have to get used to it. (But:
If there is already a Trac ticket DO NOT OPEN A DUPLICATE PULL REQUEST.
PLEASE.)

There's no need to email if you open a PR and @-mention the maintainer.
If they don't respond within three days, you can follow-up via email as
usual (Cc'd to this mailing list).

vq