Transfer this repository to a dedicated GitHub organization

[mumoshu]

I'd like to have one step further to maintain Helmfile better, by moving this repository to a GitHub organization https://github.com/helmfile.

This project has originally been created by awesome @roboll and the repository has been owned by him since then. Much appreciation to @roboll about that!

I don't really mind who literally owns the repository but recently I got some motivation to have administrative privilege on this repo myself to do:

• Enable and use GitHub Discussions for better place to discuss about ideas and get community support
• Enable Stale(https://github.com/apps/stale) to help to triage ever-growing number of issues remaining abandoned/unanswered.
• Enable and use GitHub Actions for CI
• Setup a documentation site Publish documentation #1755

A side benefit of moving to our own organization would be that we now have the ability to add more maintainers. As we are not funded or sponsored as a group/organization, I guess no one would like to afford one's spare time like I do to maintain Helmfile. But if anyone is interested in helping Helmfile as an additional maintainer, reach me out after we successfully moved to an org.

I've also wondered if moving this repository to my own GitHub account (possible only when roboll agrees, of course). But my account is already super crowded with many projects making it harder to reach Helmfile, and I see no clear benefit for the community having it under my GitHub account. I'd go with a GitHub organization then.

Note that this doesn't relate to, or affect our potential move to CNCF/Helm org #758. I'll keep considering moving to CNCF/Helm because it would provide some (still vague) user benefit.

But in the shorter-term though, what I want is something that helps me maintaining Helmfile easier and more efficiently today, hence moving to our own GitHub organization.

If there's no strong objection, I'd really like this to happen. If you could leave any comments, it would be great.

Anyway, I'll start by talking with @roboll about it's something He wants to do in the first place.

[mumoshu]

One more thing I'd like to do once we moved to a GitHub org is to transfer projects like:

• https://github.com/mumoshu/terraform-provider-helmfile
• https://github.com/variantdev/vals
• https://github.com/variantdev/chartify

All these are tightly coupled to Helmfile and making it visible to everyone for open collaboration would be beneficial.

[renehernandez]

I am happy to step up into a more active role. I can help oversee documentation improvements plus the helmfile unittest integration initially. And later on expand into other areas

[andrewnazarov]

And it opens the possibility to sponsor this Github organization harbouring Helmfile and the company:)

[wi1dcard]

I'm willing to be one of the maintainers of Helmfile. I can help with CI, GitHub Actions, and maybe documentation localization. Really excited seeing Helmfile is going to move another significant step further!

[mumoshu]

@roboll Hey! Have you had any chance to consider this move?

[mumoshu]

@roboll I hope you are well 😃

[z0rc]

Seems @roboll is MIA. At this case the only viable option to move this project ahead is forking.

[z0rc]

#2043 (comment)

I don't have much slack in my life these days to allow me to work on it soon

It's sad to see that single active maintainer is overwhelmed with support activity. This is pressing matter and helmfile needs more people to maintain and support it. But with current owner that is MIA, it becomes really dreadful situation. Please consider forking this project in dedicated org.

[yxxhero]

any update? this is a good idea.

[mumoshu]

I just submitted a query to where GitHub folks can see, to ask what options other than forking exist. Maybe it takes at least several days to settle, so I would appreciate it if you could hold on a bit.
I hope that would be the final step until we commit to fork 🙏

[roboll]

I don’t follow the project much anymore. If there are permissions I can grant for the repo i am happy to do so. I don’t have any interest in moving the repo, so otherwise please feel free to fork.

Thanks again to @mumoshu for all of the maintainership and hard work, and good luck with the future of the project.

[z0rc]

So fork it is then.

[yxxhero]

any updates? @mumoshu Thanks very much.

[mumoshu]

@roboll Thank you very much for the response and the opportunity you afforded me ☺️

I'm going to fork the project to immediately start unblocking several things that might be sources of frustration for folks.

No intention to offend you. Just wanted to be clear on why I'm going to fork it even if you kindly expressed your willingness to give any permissions for the repo on demand.

I and you seem to have much less time to spend on this project than before(perhaps 3 or 4 years ago when you started the project and I've asked you to let me be a maintainer? Good old days!). If it took a year or so for us to converge for every permission-related event, it would result in not-so-small frustration for users.

By forking and setting up several things related to the repo, I'd like to immediately open up possibilities to improve the situation by leveraging GitHub more and inviting more folks to contribute to the project.

Here's the home for the fork:

https://github.com/helmfile/helmfile

Thank you again for starting the project and supporting us in maintaining it so far, @roboll! I wish all the best for you 🙏

[mumoshu]

Re: TODOs I've listed in this issue's description:

• Enable and use GitHub Discussions for better place to discuss about ideas and get community support
• Enable Stale(https://github.com/apps/stale) to help to triage ever-growing number of issues remaining abandoned/unanswered.
• Enable and use GitHub Actions for CI (Special thanks to @itscaro for Add github action #2084)
• Setup a documentation site Publish documentation #1755 (I'm going to try porting Docs automation using Material for Mkdocs #1819 by @renehernandez to GitHub Actions)
  • Ported it to mkdocs + ReadTheDocs. It's available at https://helmfile.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ (Special thanks to @renehernandez for Publish documentation #1755)

And other things I'd like to set up before fully moving the repo:

• Enable Dependabot alerts
• Code scanning alerts
• Auto-lock closed issues and pull requests (e.g. close any issues matching is:closed is:unlocked updated:<20yy-mm-dd))
• New locations for Docker images and release automation
• New Issue forms and a bot to automatically close issues with insufficient info (Instead of a bot, I create an issue form for bug reports and added contact links for ideas and q&a

A side benefit of moving to our own organization would be that we now have the ability to add more maintainers. As we are not funded or sponsored as a group/organization, I guess no one would like to afford one's spare time like I do to maintain Helmfile. But if anyone is interested in helping Helmfile as an additional maintainer, reach me out after we successfully moved to an org.

@renehernandez @wi1dcard Hey! Are you still interested in being additional maintainers?

@itscaro I believe you definitely deserve a seat as a maintainer if you see any value in being one!

I'm also reviewing the Insights page to see if there're any other good candidates for additional maintainers 👀
https://github.com/helmfile/helmfile/graphs/contributors?from=2016-11-20&to=2022-04-03&type=c

[itscaro]

@mumoshu Thanks for the invitation, I would love to join :-)

[Almenon]

Enable Stale(https://github.com/apps/stale) to help to triage ever-growing number of issues remaining abandoned/unanswered.

How does stale help triage the issues? I see stale a lot but I don't quite get why maintainers use it.

[mumoshu]

@Almenon It gives maintainers more time to work on actionable issues, bug fixes, feature developments etc by removing the burden of periodically revisiting all the issues that lack any activitivies for long time. Without that, we end up with hundreds of issues remain opened with a lot of repeated questions and invalid features or support cases. I want to use GitHub Issues as a place dedicated to track actionable items(valid feature requests and reproducible and significant bugs), but all those ever increasing number of issues of mixed importance prevented me to do so.

[lindhe]

I'm missing the GitHub Releases. For me, that was a pretty convenient way to get the latest binary. Is that coming to the new org, or is there a better recommended way to install it now?

[renehernandez]

I'm missing the GitHub Releases. For me, that was a pretty convenient way to get the latest binary. Is that coming to the new org, or is there a better recommended way to install it now?

@lindhe The releases will be copied to the new org and new releases will be created at https://github.com/helmfile/helmfile

[zhilyaev]

Welcome to a dedicated organization! I've already seen it somewhere :)

[paichinger]

@mumoshu : Count me in as well!

[bitsofinfo]

@mumoshu me too please!

[baurmatt]

Would be great to archive this repository and add a link to the new location in the repository description to make the transfer more clear.

[yxxhero]

Would be great to archive this repository and add a link to the new location in the repository description to make the transfer more clear.

@mumoshu Can we do this? Thanks very much.

[mumoshu]

@yxxhero Unfortunately, I have no privilege to archive this repo 😢

[dudicoco]

Hi @mumoshu.

I took me a while to realize that the repo has moved as there's no way getting updated of this if you're only watching releases.

I think it would be beneficial for others if you release a dummy release just so everyone gets updated about the move.

[talonx]

On the issues front, I think the old repo has a lot of issues which have served as discussions where many valuable tips have been shared over the years - it would be a shame to lose them.

[yxxhero]

Hi @mumoshu.

I took me a while to realize that the repo has moved as there's no way getting updated of this if you're only watching releases.

I think it would be beneficial for others if you release a dummy release just so everyone gets updated about the move.

@mumoshu this is a good idea. WDYT?

[yxxhero]

On the issues front, I think the old repo has a lot of issues which have served as discussions where many valuable tips have been shared over the years - it would be a shame to lose them.

dou you have some proposal? Thanks very much.