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Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] How to support wireshark w/o having an OpenID

From: Ed Beroset <beroset@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 21:43:50 -0400 (GMT-04:00)


-----Original Message-----
>From: Kevin Cox <kevincox@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Aug 9, 2014 4:05 PM
>To: Developer support list for Wireshark <wireshark-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: [Wireshark-dev] How to support wireshark w/o having an OpenID
>
>On 09/08/14 12:51, Toralf Förster wrote:
>> My question is rather, whether it is mandatory to register at one of
>> the big IT players or if an email address would be sufficient. 
>You don't need to register at "one of the big IT players", I think that
>Wireshark gerrit is set up to accept any OpenID provider.  However I
>believe you are asking if you can sign up with just an email and I'm
>pretty sure the answer is no because gerrit doesn't do its own
>authentication.
>
>Basically the story is—as currently set up—you need an OpenID but who
>your provider is doesn't matter, you can use a public service or set
>your own up but it has to be OpenID.
>
>Sorry if that doesn't suit you, maybe you could start a discussion about
>alternate authentication methods however gerrit doesn't support much.[0]
>
>[0]
>https://gerrit.googlecode.com/svn/documentation/2.1/config-gerrit.html#auth

I'm not sure it matters sufficiently that it could or should cause course alteration, but as one who has contributed modestly to Wireshark before the move to gerrit, but not since then, I'd have to say that for me, the setup/registration/configuration/etc. has definitely impeded further contributions.  The new process is something that I haven't really gotten around to trying to figure out.  I'm not saying it's the wrong choice, but it's just that much more effort to even *submit* a patch, that I suspect that a lot of would-be contributors might find the threshold too high.  Maybe updating documentation could help.  Right now, if you go to the main "develop" page https://www.wireshark.org/develop.html and click on the link under "code review site" you get to https://code.wireshark.org/review/#/q/status:open,n,z which offers no clue at all as to how one should actually register.  I'm sure I could figure it out, and I'm sure many have.  It's just that I'd really just like to be able to contribute patches without having to do quite so much exploration.  Maybe I'm just lazy, but it might be nice if the barrier to useful contribution were lowered just a bit.

Ed