Sourcehut uses it, it’s actually the only way to interact with repos hosted on it.
It definitely feels outdated, yet it’s also how git is designed to work well with. Like git makes it really easy to re-write commit history, while also warning you not to force push re-written history to a public repo (Like e.g. a PR), that’s because none of that is an issue with the email workflow, where each email is always an entirely isolated new commit.
Compared to e.g. pushing a button in VS code and having your browser pop up with a pre-filled in github PR page? It’s clunky, but that doesn’t mean it’s not useful.
For starters it’s entirely decentralised, a single email address is all you need to commit to anything, regardless of where and how it’s hosted. There was actually an article on lobsters recently that I thought was quite neat, how the combination of a patch-based workflow and email allows for entirely offline development, something that’s simply not possible with things like github or codeberg.
The fact that you can “send” an email without actually sending it means you can queue the patch submissions up offline and then send them whenever you’re ready, along with downloading the replies.
I haven’t heard of any projects but Linux and Git itself using this.
Sourcehut uses it, it’s actually the only way to interact with repos hosted on it.
It definitely feels outdated, yet it’s also how git is designed to work well with. Like git makes it really easy to re-write commit history, while also warning you not to force push re-written history to a public repo (Like e.g. a PR), that’s because none of that is an issue with the email workflow, where each email is always an entirely isolated new commit.
I haven’t heard of anyone using Soucehut. (I guess Soucehut itself counts though.)
What, why?
Compared to e.g. pushing a button in VS code and having your browser pop up with a pre-filled in github PR page? It’s clunky, but that doesn’t mean it’s not useful.
For starters it’s entirely decentralised, a single email address is all you need to commit to anything, regardless of where and how it’s hosted. There was actually an article on lobsters recently that I thought was quite neat, how the combination of a patch-based workflow and email allows for entirely offline development, something that’s simply not possible with things like github or codeberg.
https://ploum.net/2026-01-31-offline-git-send-email.html
The fact that you can “send” an email without actually sending it means you can queue the patch submissions up offline and then send them whenever you’re ready, along with downloading the replies.
Ah, the process you mean. patch itself is still useful.