Questions tagged [etiquette]
The etiquette tag has no usage guidance.
30
questions
94
votes
5answers
15k views
Should I submit a pull request to correct minor typos in a Readme file?
While going through the README file of a GitHub repository I am not a contributor of, I noticed a few minor typos and wondered if I should submit a pull request to correct them or if reviewing the ...
1
vote
3answers
126 views
Good etiquette for 2 optional arguments that can't both be used
I'll demonstrate with an example of the normal distribution in Python.
def norm_pdf(x, mu=0, v=1, p=1):
"""Returns un-normalized probability density of normal distribution at x.
mu: mean
v: ...
2
votes
1answer
383 views
Should I fork in Github if I won't make pull requests?
There's a RFID Reader library for Arduino that I wish to adapt to another reader model. But since the original library not only has the same name of the reader it supports, the reader model name is ...
13
votes
1answer
953 views
I accidentally overhauled someone's entire project. Any acceptable way to pull request?
I found a great project on github with a useful central feature but which is rough in the "polishing" of error handling, logging, config, and setup. The project is 5 years untouched, and only a couple ...
8
votes
5answers
674 views
Etiquette for reverting others' work
Recently I've had an argument with a teammate that I was "not consulting them before reverting" because it makes them "look like an idiot". (For context, this is a university project, and the revert ...
2
votes
1answer
135 views
Is it appropriate to ask for mentorship when getting involved with an open source project?
I'm trying to get involved in an open source project and I am feeling a little lost for several reasons:
I've been reading the project's mailing list, but its a fairly large and complicated project ...
5
votes
3answers
193 views
What's the etiquette of contributing to OSS that doesn't have a Contributing page
I'm thinking about contributing to a small R package on github that has only 1 contributor. What's the standard etiquette when there's not Contributing.md page on small projects like this?
Should I ...
2
votes
2answers
154 views
How to handle pull requests to original repo with changes dependent on a newer version of the compiler
I have a github project that I've forked. The original repo was written for a version of OCaml before version 4.02.1. The 4.02.1 compiler gives me various deprecation warnings which I plan on fixing ...
5
votes
1answer
188 views
How to offer money to an open source project?
There's an open source project on GitHub that is very useful, but doesn't have a feature I want and which a fair number of other users have been clamoring for in the issues.
There's already an ...
260
votes
6answers
64k views
Why squash git commits for pull requests?
Why does every serious Github repo I do pull requests for want me to squash my commits into a single commit?
I thought the git log was there so you could inspect all your history and see exactly what ...
3
votes
1answer
433 views
Fork a subset of a repo - licensing and etiquette
I'm a contributor to a large open source project. I have made heavy changes to a submodule of that project to support more functionality, but at this point further improvements will be outside the ...
0
votes
3answers
334 views
How should I include jQuery in a library?
I'm writing a JavaScript graphing library using canvas which I am licensing under MIT, and I'm using jQuery, as well as a couple of other open sourced libraries, all under MIT. I'm also using bower to ...
3
votes
1answer
235 views
Zero Day Exploit Ethics/Etiquette [duplicate]
What are my responsibilities, as a developer, if I stumble upon a zero day exploit in a widely used third party piece of software?
Should the developer only tell the third party to limit the affect? ...
25
votes
1answer
5k views
Is it correct to ask contributers to rebase their pull requests on github
I maintain a relatively popular github repo.
When a pull request is good to merge I usually ask the author to rebase it to a single commit before I merge it (especially when there have been multiple ...
3
votes
2answers
1k views
Should I fork a fork (on Github)? [closed]
On Github, I've run across a pull request which it implements a feature I like but feel isn't quite intuitive and could be better. The maintainers of the original repo have so far declined to accept ...
5
votes
2answers
463 views
GitHub etiquette for duplicating a repo to change functionality
I've found a GitHub project I'd like to add some features to. After contacting the maintainer, the changes aren't in line with the direction he's going but he's interested to see what I do with it. ...
8
votes
1answer
2k views
How to maintain a forked git repo with feature branches that upstream won't pull?
So here's a typical workflow on Github...
Like some project -> fork it -> git clone https://github.com/you/someproject.
Open project. Like what you see, but make some changes.
Having been ...
21
votes
1answer
1k views
Etiquette for editing someone's pull request
I own a repository on GitHub to which someone sent a pull request with one single commit. I only want to implement his solution partially, and use about half of the code changes the user made. What ...
15
votes
2answers
2k views
What to do when somebody forks my open-source project with the same name?
I have this GPL project, it got stuck for like a year, I really like the idea, then somebody fork it and changed the whole thing but used the same name, I don't mind for the code (it was GPL after all)...
12
votes
1answer
632 views
What is proper etiquette for releasing a complete rewrite of an existing project?
I'm new to the opensource world. The project I'm working on resides on Github. (Just for reference) The project I'm working on is a plug-in for the Plex Media Server. I plan to submit my plug-in to ...
30
votes
2answers
11k views
What is the etiquette of renaming an open source fork?
I want to fork on Github the TestNG java testing framework (Apache 2 license) so I can add/change some minor things to suit my needs.
It's unlikely that all of my changes would be approved in the ...
21
votes
1answer
8k views
What is proper etiquette and recommended GitHub workflow for simultaneously contributing to and diverging from upstream repo?
I'm new to GitHub and VCS in general. I've been programming in various languages for years, but I've always worked solo on custom projects (no public releases). I recently started using a jQuery UI ...
25
votes
5answers
1k views
Bug Tracking Etiquette - Necromancy or Duplicate?
I came across a really old (2+ years) feature request issue in a bug tracker for an open source project that was marked as "resolved (won't fix)" due to the lack of tools required to make the ...
26
votes
2answers
3k views
Forking project on Github process
There is a project on Github that I mostly like and want to use. There are a few things I want to do differently/remove that doesn't make sense for what I want/need. Also I want to add a few things as ...
39
votes
1answer
11k views
Pulling in changes from a forked repo without a request on GitHub?
I'm new to the social coding community and don't know how to proceed properly in this situation:
I've created a GitHub Repository a couple weeks ago. Someone forked the project and has made some ...
12
votes
6answers
884 views
Whose responsibility is a bug fix patch?
A situation that has arisen several times in open source projects goes like this:
I notice a bug in our deployment, and figure out a quick hack patch. (For example, simply commenting out code that we ...
7
votes
4answers
386 views
Is it impolite to file bug reports against abandoned open-source projects?
Is it considered impolite to file a bug report against an abandoned open-source project, or an abandoned branch of a still-continuing project?
Is it perceived as making a request of the former author(...
14
votes
7answers
915 views
Open Source Etiquette
I've started working on my first open source project on Codeplex and came across some terrible code. (I did learn that C# still has the "goto" statement) I started adding features that the "owner" ...
19
votes
13answers
2k views
What rules of etiquette should be followed at software conferences? [closed]
Whether as an attendee, a speaker, or a vendor I wanted to know what the unspoken rules of etiquette are at software conferences. Other than the blindingly obvious ones (like don't assault the winner ...
19
votes
13answers
2k views
What to do if a co-worker is editing your code just to change the appearance?
What should you do, if a co-worker is editing your code?
Without the purpose of adding functionality or fixing bugs, just to change how it looks...
