Re: What have the Romans done for us? (Bazaar)

[Óscar Fuentes]

Alan Mackenzie <address@hidden> writes:

[snip]

> So, yes, bzr is wonderful, because it's a DISTRIBUTED VCS, and
> distributed VCSs are Good Things.  Would somebody please remind me why?

Using Distributed Version Control Sytems (dVCSs) supports the goals of
the Free Software movement.

Free Software grants the user the right to access the source code so he
can study it. Just as producing well written source reinforces this
right, giving easy access to the VC history does likewise. Easy access
here means local access, so the user can perform whatever operation he
pleases without the constraints of a remote server.

Free Software grants the user the right to modify the source
code. Distributed VCs makes this much easier, as it is trivial to create
your personal fork (branch) and integrate changes from upstream. Compare
this with maintaining sets of patches.

Free Software means granting the user the right to re-distribute his
modified software. With a dVCS, publishing your personal branch is
almost as easy as putting a tarball for download, but with the added
advantage for your users of having an easy method for knowing exactly
how your modified source differs from the master project, and providing
the capability of easily picking specific changes and integrating them
on other forks or on the original project, which includes allowing your
users the capability of basing their changes on top of yours (i.e. by
forking your source code).

Thus dVCSs are excellent tools for administering your local changes and
sharing them with the community. This is a strong encouragement for
people who is considering start hacking on some piece of software.

Implicit conveniences:

If the master project vanishes, you can resurrect it in no-time without
missing a bit of development history.

If you wish to collaborate with others developing a fork (branch) of the
original project, dVCSs makes this trivial.

If you wish to contribute your changes to the original project, dVCSs
makes this substantially easier than previous tools.

IMO GNU should recommend using Distributed Version Control Systems to
all developers working on Free Software.