No more issues
Laravel recently implemented a change where they disabled the creation of issues for certain repositories, and encouraged users to submit pull requests instead. This change applies to packages like Socialite and Scout, but not to Laravel's main repository. Taylor, a key contributor, finds this a fascinating change, mainly benefiting maintainers rather than users.
From a maintainer's perspective, they're more likely to invest time in a PR if the submitter is willing to submit one, as there's limited time to do everything and prioritization is necessary. The use of AI in creating PRs may require more review effort compared to submitting an issue, as AI-generated PRs tend to need more review.
Laravel might inadvertently release bugs affecting many people, leading to numerous PRs fixing the issue quickly. While this might be similar to the number of issues required, automated CI actions could trigger more times due to duplicate PRs. Maintaining a balance between encouraging contributions while managing the workload of maintainers is a challenge.
Some argue that PR spam is not the issue, but rather the work triggered by those PRs. Open source isn't just about reporting issues, but also about contributing. Historically, many people have contributed to Laravel without issues needing to be submitted. The change may raise the bar for contributing, potentially excluding less experienced programmers.
Despite these concerns, Taylor believes that AI can make contributions more accessible, but acknowledges that experienced human review is still necessary.
Written by urgent.news from Lobsters's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
