Andrea Veri commented:
@afranke, there's no real way we have to force a GitHub contributor to register to GNOME's GitLab and respond to the issue other than suggesting we provide a GitHub login button they can click on to be actually able to respond effectively to the issue. If you're really interested in seeing your patch accepted upstream I'm sure you won't be stopped by contributing by opening an account on the platform the project you have decided to contribute to is different. Additionally the idea of having MRs synced over to GitLab has several benefits including:
- Making sure the contributor doesn't get pissed off from the fact his contribution has been e-wasted when the MR gets automatically closed
- Making sure the GNOME maintainer is able to receive patches that might (or might not) be of his/her interest
- Having the GitHub contributor eventually decide to open a GNOME GitLab account and decide to stick around the community: see it as a way to increase the GNOME contributors base long term
Without the mirror we'd lose the contribution all together.