[Development] Buddy group to help new contributors

[Elias Steurer]

Hi Volker,

Thanks for the update on the Qt Contributors Summit. It's great to hear 
about the initiatives to make the contribution process smoother, 
especially for newcomers.

However, while setting up a Gerrit group for hand-holding new 
contributors is a step in the right direction, I believe we might be 
missing a crucial point. The core issue isn't just about guiding new 
contributors through the existing process; it's about the inherent 
complexity and user-unfriendliness of the current workflow.

 From installing a plethora of tools to dealing with the confusing repo 
cloning process, Perl dependencies and Perl path issues 
<https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/3586205/166160892-461dbcb0-81c2-4ca4-8a66-d11aaa2c2bbb.png>,  
the barriers to entry are high. Then, there's the challenge of 
navigating the Gerrit setup, which is far from straightforward. The 
documentation is inconsistent and sometimes contradictory, adding to the 
confusion. And that's before even getting into the complexities of 
submitting patches and managing code reviews. If you want I can send you 
my personal notes, that I have written down recently while setting up Qt 
locally for the first time in years. Most of it is about my frustration 
why a solved problem, like contributing to an open source project, is so 
unnecessary complicated.

In essence, the current workflow is daunting, even with a support group. 
I suggest we consider moving towards a more streamlined and "sane" 
workflow. Simplifying the entire contribution process from the ground up 
will make Qt more accessible to everyone. Once a more intuitive and 
welcoming workflow is establish, guiding new contributors will be much 
more effective. *After all, the best hand-holding is the one you don't 
need because the path is clear and easy to follow. *

It might be worth considering a migration to GitLab, which has been a 
successful move for other open-source projects like KDE and Arch. Given 
that Qt already uses an internal GitLab instance, this could be a good 
platform for future collaboration. Alternatively, adopting Gitea, as 
used by the Blender Foundation, could also be a viable option if Gitlab 
licensing is a no-go.

I strongly believe the focus should be on overhauling the workflow 
first. Everything else, including smoother onboarding of new 
contributors, will naturally follow.

There was also an discussion about this recently on Reddit. 
<https://www.reddit.com/r/QtFramework/comments/17jnbsr/have_you_ever_tried_to_contribute_to_qt_directly/>

Best,

Eli

On 12/5/2023 9:57 AM, Volker Hilsheimer via Development wrote:
> At the Qt Contributors Summit in Berlin last week, we discussed various ideas around improving the contribution experience, esp for new people.
>
> One action that came out of that was setting up a gerrit group of people that are able and willing to hand-hold new contributors through the process. This includes setting up your local development environment, gerrit configuration and workflow, and finding out what to work on from e.g. Jira. The basic idea is that we establish a (gerrit, probably) group with buddies; we can already identify “first gerrit reviews" for a new user, and then we can proactively reach out with a welcome message, and add the group of buddies as a reviewer.
>
> A few people raised their hand at the event, but I don’t think anyone took down the names, and I was busy juggling microphones. And either way, this is of course open to anyone! So please reply to this, either to all or privately to me, if you want to be part of that group.
>
> Cheers,
> Volker
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/development/attachments/20231208/41150367/attachment.htm>