Software Engineering Stack Exchange
Software Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [etiquette]

30 questions
298
votes
6 answers

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 changes happened where, but squashing it pulls it…
hamstar
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104
votes
5 answers

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 request would take the maintainer too much time to…
Florent Michel
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39
votes
1 answer

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 small changes that have been on my to-do. I'm thrilled…
Alec
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33
votes
2 answers

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 main project or that other people would use my fork.…
Bogdan Calmac
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25
votes
1 answer

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 small edits). Is this good git practice? Is this…
Pablojim
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25
votes
5 answers

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 requested enhancement. In the time elapsed since that…
Shauna
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25
votes
2 answers

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 well. As I understand it, I should fork the…
Mike Wills
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22
votes
1 answer

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 should I do in this situation? Make a branch of his…
IQAndreas
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21
votes
1 answer

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 widget I downloaded from GitHub in a project I am…
toxalot
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20
votes
13 answers

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...
Tamara Wijsman
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19
votes
13 answers

What rules of etiquette should be followed at software conferences?

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 of the iPad raffle because you didn't win). …
shemnon
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15
votes
2 answers

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) but I like the name. What's the etiquette for…
MGP
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14
votes
7 answers

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" wanted and after exploring the code base and seeing…
Jetti
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13
votes
1 answer

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 hundred lines of code. Still it's useful enough…
user1169420
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13
votes
1 answer

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 Plex so that it will be included in their "app…
Matt Keller
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1
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