[dpdk-dev] [RFC] proposal of allowing personal/project repos on DPDK.org

[Tiwei Bie <tiwei.bie@intel.com>]

Hello everyone,

We'd like to make a proposal of making DPDK.org allow hosting
some personal/project repos, which could be very useful when
someone wants to try some experimental projects in DPDK. Many
formal/mature opensource communities allow this. Such as:

FreeBSD:

The main branch is here:

https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/

And developers can try or start experimental projects here:

https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/user/
https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/projects/
https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/vendor/
...

We can also find similar things on kernel.org and freedesktop.org:

https://git.kernel.org/
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/

But currently on DPDK.org, for the repos of DPDK, besides the main
repo, there are just one repo for stable release, few old repos
which are obsoleted, and some "-next" repos which are mainly used
as the preparation of pull requests for different subsystems of DPDK.
Some “-next” repos may be developed individually for a short time
when they are created, but will always be merged to the main repo
after few releases. We think they are too formal/limited to try
new ideas.

What we want to proposal is to make DPDK.org allow hosting some
DPDK based repos which may be very experimental, which even not
be planned to be merged back to the main repo directly, and may
be deleted directly if it proves that no one really cares about
it. Just like what other opensource communities did, allow some
core developers/vendors create their own repos and try ideas on
DPDK.org without too many restrictions. We think it can provide
people a very convenient way to try ideas in DPDK community and
eventually help DPDK grow.

Allowing it won't have any negative impact on the existing repos
of DPDK, instead, it can help to keep them tidy and clean when
someone wants/needs to try some very experimental and big ideas
publicly in DPDK as he/she can start it in an experimental repo.
An experimental repo can be merged back to the main repo when it
proves to be mature and useful, or could just be deleted when no
one really cares about it any more.

Please share your thoughts on this. Many thanks! :-)

Best regards,
Tiwei Bie