> `git send-email` may work well, but it's an extremely niche way to send email
It is. You'd likely do it only if the project required it. And that's what it's for.
> it puts a huge barrier in the way of contributing to a project
I guess it depends on a project. Would I tell anyone to configure git-send-email for something simple? Probably not. Does anyone care about enforcing it when developing an operating system? Probably not - the patch and testing required way more experience anyway.
> which indicates that apparently Linux kernel development uses the "published branch" workflow
Yes, it does. Some subsystems maintainers keep their own trees that are merged whole, rather than separate patches. But pretty much all dev contributions are patch emails first.
It is. You'd likely do it only if the project required it. And that's what it's for.
> it puts a huge barrier in the way of contributing to a project
I guess it depends on a project. Would I tell anyone to configure git-send-email for something simple? Probably not. Does anyone care about enforcing it when developing an operating system? Probably not - the patch and testing required way more experience anyway.
> which indicates that apparently Linux kernel development uses the "published branch" workflow
Yes, it does. Some subsystems maintainers keep their own trees that are merged whole, rather than separate patches. But pretty much all dev contributions are patch emails first.