this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
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MRs from who? Because in my experience it often feels like a closed club in gnome land.
I've had experience trying to contribute to evince the gnome PDF viewer. It was so frustrating and I was immediately and repeatedly confronted with negativity and distrust that I quit. That was the only time I did that after making a serious effort.
If you scare away anyone else it's no wonder that it seems like there is no problem.
Gnome is a very large project with hundreds of different developers and maintainers. I can't speak to your experience but you should avoid generalizing like that, also filing a complaint is always an option; there's a few people over the years that have been kicked out.
Yea I think there is a misunderstanding. My first question was not rhetorical. I was just expressing that my personal experience matches the one described above.
With that both statements could have some truth: 5/6 MRs could be merged and it could still be that they dislike external contributions.
I will not file a complaint or anything like that. It was not that I was insulted nor assaulted just they gave me the vibe that external contribution was not very welcome. While frustrating that is ok, even if it could've been better communicated. Also it was like 4 years ago.
External contributions aren't really a thing, 99% of contributions come from people that have been contributing for a while.
As for your MR, you need to go where help is actually wanted, solve issues nobody has gotten to yet. Newer projects are typically easier to contribute to. Probably inquire a bit about the maintainers and project direction in general first.
Great attitude! I was the issue all along. Who would've thought.
Strange that I didn't have that problem almost anywhere else where I contributed.
Edit: you do see how your comment matches my experience that it feels more like a closed club of elites right?
Well as far as i can see you've only had a problem with evince, which is retired btw. Gnome isn't a giant blob, each maintainer handles their project in their own way.
I was curious not knowing that evince is getting retired and looked into this It seems there was a problem even for established contributors which is why it was eventually forked. This Blogpost goes into detail.
It seems the main maintainer had very little time for the project. I don't know if that was the case 4 years ago but if it was it would explain some things.
Yes which is why I never said the whole of gnome is like that but what my experience was and why I suggested investigating if the claim has merit.
It's like this everywhere, you'll always be initially met with circumspection. Passer-by contributions are not a help, helping out new contributors is a lot of effort that not every maintainer wants to deal with. You want to help, that's great, but you're not entitled to helping.
Gnome might be a club, but it's definitely not closed, you just need to put in the effort to show you're worth having around.
No thanks. I don't want nor need to be in the club. Nor will I ever go out of my way to show people that I'm "worth having around" in my free time. I don't think that's healthy.
If they don't see my worth or I am actually worthless to have around I'll search for someplace else. Like I said already: I have never had that problem in any other project.
Also I don't feel entitled to have my patches merged. I can maintain them myself if necessary.
If you think there's a problem, you should report it.
Gotta stick around to find out.