[vtk-developers] VTK code review / testing / integration workflow

[Berk Geveci]

Hi folks,

It is time for us to look at our options to replace our current Gerrit
instance (review.source.kitware.com).

Here is some background information: review.source.kitware.com runs a fork
of the Gerrit code base from quite a while ago. The main feature of the
fork is the support for topics (branches). The original Gerrit only
supports reviewing of individual commits (changes) and has no concept of
branches. The lack of support for branches is an issue for us from both
automated testing and review point of view. So we extended Gerrit to
support branches. Alas, our changes have not been accepted upstream and we
are not interested in putting more effort in maintaining the fork as Gerrit
code advances. So we can not make use of new Gerrit features and more
importantly security fixes. So it is time to move on.

I would like to start this process with a discussion of workflows (rather
than tools). Let's first figure out one or more ideal (and reasonable)
workflows. Then we can discuss tools to achieve these workflows and make a
decision.

Here I'll list some requirements that I thought are important in no
particular order:

- Maintain an open and "democratic" review process, a la Gerrit voting
support.

- The workflow needs to be distributed and not require a single (or a few)
maintainer to integrate code. A la our Gerrit's review and merge support.

- Workflow needs to scale with the community size.

- Support for cdash @ home style testing of code under review before
integration.

- Support for arbitrary server side checks beyond cdash @ home before
integration.

- Support for "audit trail". There needs to be way of getting to the
original discussion and reviews that led to the acceptance of a particular
branch.

I will follow up with a few initial workflow suggestions. Please send your
workflow suggestions or requirements.

Best,
-berk
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