Re: Proposal: Subversion Migration

[Nicolas Roard]

On 12 Oct 2005 03:10:04 GMT, MJ Ray <mjr@phonecoop.coop> wrote:
> Andrew Ruder <aeruder@ksu.edu> wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 12, 2005 at 01:32:57AM +0200, Helge Hess wrote: [...]
> > > b) Svn is not a viable option for GNU projects due to licensing
> > > issues (is this really true?)
> >
> > There is obviously no issue or gcc wouldn't be moving to it next week.
>
> That was not the claim. SVN is under a GPL-incompatible licence.
> In practical terms, this makes any GPL application linking with
> it undistributable, IIRC. So, forget having a slick GPL'd GNUstep
> app to manage your archive.

Ok.. :-/ well, it's annoying, but on the other end I don't see it as
such a problem -- use BSD licence or something else (will LGPL be ok
?) if you absolutely want a graphical tool..

> > I can't agree with you more here.  With the exception of finding a
> > server, moving from CVS => Subversion brings many benefits for not a lot
> > of effort.  The learning curve is non-existant.  Assuming we find a
> > place that everyone agrees with for hosting, I can only ask one
> > question:
> >
> > Why not?
>
> It's more software for people to use, and apparently big software
> at that. According to http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/trunk/INSTALL
> the prerequisites for compiling include the Apache Web Server.
> Selecting the client package on a debian testing machine invites
> nearly 5Mb to install, compared with just over 1Mb for CVS.
>
> That's quite an overhead for something which seems very likely
> not to be the long-term winner, because it doesn't solve the
> client-server problem at all.

As people said earlier, would you prefer waiting one or two year
before picking the "long-term winner"  ?.. Frankly, I don't think it's
a good idea to wait eternally..
Yes svn is bigger than cvs, but 4mb doesn't really matter in today's
world, does it ?

I don't understand this conservatism, sometimes.

> If the trees head off into the subversion mists, can there
> be patches and daily-snapshots for the rest of the world, please?
>
> What's the tearing hurry to rush down a dead end? At the
> speed at which git-based tools seem to be converging - arch
> was heading git-wards before the latest twist in the road,
> darcs has --enable-git, monotone is doing something with git
> that I don't yet understand, nor do I fathom Mercurial - it
> might be all over bar the porting in a few months.
>
> Oh well, at least no-one suggested BitKeeper. ;-)

Well, we have better things than cvs; svn is a smooth transition from
cvs, which is why it was suggested (no learning curve). Other tools,
while more powerful, are not as easy to work with (at least in the
beginning). Nothing will prevent us to work with them in the future
either.

Anyway, I'm not a gnustep contributor, so this is all talk on the ml.
But I sure wouldn't mind something else than cvs, be it svn or
something else.

--
Nicolas Roard
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
  -Arthur C. Clarke