[Cvs-dev] CVS-on-Gentoo & Fix mailing list link [Was: CVS maintenance question]

[Robin H. Johnson]

To help everybody find it, there's a link on this page that is wrong:
https://lists.nongnu.org/

Both of the links there go to
gnu.org, instead of nongnu.org:
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/
https://lists.gnu.org/pipermail/

With the final link needed by everybody actually being at:
https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/cvs-dev

> We are in the process of upgrading savannah's infrastructure, including our 
> CVS daemons.
> We noticed that the last stable release was 1.11.23, and the latest 
> unstable/feature release was 1.12.13 - both many years old.
> Each distribution uses a different version, but all maintain a hefty amount 
> of patches on top of that version.
> For savannah we need some features that were committed after 1.12.13, so we 
> can't even use the packaged version.
What post-1.12.13 features is Savannah using?

1.12.13.1 was tagged, but never released, due to problems with the
windows build introduced after 1.12.13:
http://gnu.cvs.help.narkive.com/05ODCOPa/cvs-1-12-13-1-init-problem

> First,
> If any one of you is interested in stepping up to be the chief upstream 
> maintainer of cvs - that would be welcomed.
> Some current CVS maintainers expressed willingness to help to any new 
> maintainer.
> Perhaps this could usher a new long-due release.
As the Gentoo maintainer for both CVS-the-package, as well Gentoo's CVS
server, I think it's time to strongly discourage future use and get
everybody moved to modern CVS.

> Second,
> If you have any recommendation as to the best way to proceed, any critical 
> patches you think should be applied -
> all these and any other comments are welcomed.
All the Gentoo patches are here:
https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/dev-vcs/cvs/files/

Notable:
cvs-1.12.12-fix-massive-leak.patch
cvs-1.12.12-format-security.patch
cvs-1.12.12-mktime-configure.patch (needs rewriting to work on configure.in, or 
update the bundled AC macros)
cvs-1.12.12-mktime-x32.patch
cvs-1.12.12-openat.patch

> For example, why did Centos/Redhat/Fedora choose 1.11.23, while Gentoo - 
> 1.12.12, and Debian/Ubuntu used 1.12.13 ?
Gentoo tried 1.12.13, but problems were experienced:
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=311643 - testsuite failures
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=124733 - broke general usage
See also:
https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/bug-cvs/2007-01/msg00019.html

I think changing the default value of CVS_VERIFY_CHECKOUTS to 'no' would
have resolved at least #124733, because the additional output was
breaking scripts.

-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
Gentoo Linux: Dev, Infra Lead, Foundation Trustee & Treasurer
E-Mail   : address@hidden
GnuPG FP : 11ACBA4F 4778E3F6 E4EDF38E B27B944E 34884E85
GnuPG FP : 7D0B3CEB E9B85B1F 825BCECF EE05E6F6 A48F6136

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