GitHub pull requests

Here's a thread for discussing the github (GH) pull-request (PR) method of contributing.

My views, briefly, include:

* I don't want open source projects to support GitHub; there is at least one good open source alternative, GitLab. So I don't want us to keep the existing GH semi-integration as-is, for that reason at least. I don't see a real need to have any level of presence on GitHub beyond probably a place-holder that points to our preferred options.

* When the facility to contribute in this way (PRs) is available, it is because We, the ASF community, have made it so, and we can turn it off if we don't like it. It would be very rude of us to criticize contributors for using a route that we have made available. (The same applies to writing to the mailing list from google groups, for example.)

* I think drive-by contributions can be a valuable route for new contributors to get started. I do acknowledge that they sometimes require a level of hand-holding that can be tedious compared with contributions from more "seasoned" contributors. I think that's OK for our community. Nobody has to do any more than ensure a brief, polite response is given.

* I think the PR style of contribution is useful.

* I would love to help figure out how we could make a PR style of contribution work well, perhaps using GitLab, certainly with better integration than the existing GH semi-integration.

-- 
- Julian