[ntalbott]

OP author here...

The result is the same, but I've found the `git am` workflow to be much smoother vs. mucking around with remotes. Some of that could be due to the nature of the OSS project I work on - ActiveMerchant - since just in the last month we've had 30+ unique contributors, and most of them have contributed a single change.

My general recommendation is to make sure you try out the `git am` flow for a bit, but then just do what works best for you.

[peff]

Keep in mind that `git am` is not identical to pulling the commits. You might be applying the commits on a different base, and certainly your committer field will be different (not to mention any substantive changes you make). As a result, the sha1 of the commits you create will be different than those of the original submitter.

This makes life harder for the submitter, because they cannot ask a simple question: were my commits merged into the upstream repository? Because no, they weren't; but commits that are the moral equivalent were. Usually `git log --cherry-pick` can correlate the two, but not always.

We do use `git am` upstream when working on git itself, for the reasons you indicate in the article (plus we like mailing-list based review). But it does come at a cost in managing the various versions of patches.

[tytso]

This is why it is a good idea for proposed patches to be sent to a mailing list, where other people other than the repo owner can more easily review patches, and then to have those patches tracked via patchwork.

And when I accept a patch, even if I've had to edit the commit summary so it is parsable english (not all of my contributors speak english as a first language), I send a reply via e-mail saying "Thanks, applied".

[ntalbott]

Agreed, editing contributions does add a bit of extra work for contributors post-inclusion, especially if they've been using their own branch in production. That said, since this is a PR flow, the contributor will get an email from Github that their PR has been closed, and they can track directly from that PR to the closing commit.

While I've often wished that Github had a proper mailing list per repository that could be used to discuss changes, I have to say that one awesome thing about PR's is how nice they make reviewing a patch. The diff view is just awesome, so now that I have a `git am` style flow with them it would be hard for me to switch to just passing patches around on a mailing list. That said, a mailing list would still be a welcome adjunct to the PR flow if done right.

[peterwwillis]

Well the commits may be changed during pulling if the maintainer deems it necessary (or a merge just ain't happening cleanly) so it seems like the solution would be to just include the SHAs that were merged in the 'git am' commits. Then the submitter knows what they intended to get pulled got in, which should resolve patch verification, right?

[lotyrin]

I think maybe you overlooked the grandparent's suggestion; you don't have to mess with adding contributors' remotes. Open pull request heads are available on your existing remote.