Re: Converting ClearCase to CVS

[Paul Sander]

>--- Forwarded mail from address@hidden

>[ On Saturday, February 16, 2002 at 12:42:57 (-0800), Paul Sander wrote: ]
>> Subject: Re: Converting ClearCase to CVS
>>
>> You get what you pay for.  In my opinion, the quality of implementation
>> of ClearCase is much more robust than CVS, and Rational supports it much
>> better anyone supports CVS.

>Have you ever paid anyone to support CVS with the same amount of money
>you have pay for licensing _and_ support of ClearCase?  I'll bet you
>would get better support for CVS than you could ever get for ClearCase.

Well, yes and no.

I have not ever paid anyone to support CVS but rather did it myself.
I discovered that having source code doesn't make up for a broken
design, and that I have better things to do than to keep fixing basic
things (like signal handling so that ctrl-C doesn't break things,
various instances of memory mismanagement, and useful access control)
and adding hooks that I needed for larger systems.

Given the status quo, I can either buy a commercial system that has
industrial robustness and support, or I can build it myself.  In the
end, the same capabilities cost just as much either way:  The money
goes to my salary to build it, or it goes to a salesman.  If it goes
to the salesman, then I get many more man-years of robustness and
polish with a system that can be deployed much more quickly.

>In terms of support there are no advantages to being one of the many
>ClearCase users that are not also advantages of being one of the many
>CVS users.  While Rational may have more long-term dollars to put into
>research and development than has been or ever will be put into CVS
>research and development, that's not necessarily an advantage for
>ClearCase either.  Free software does not have to fight for market share
>by adding useless, and/or confusing, and/or buggy features.

One would hope that a competent designer of quality software doesn't
introduce any of these things.  While it's true that most users don't
use every feature of any system, it's still possible to measure the
utility of features across the customer base.  And companies don't
usually add features to their products unless there's great demand for
them.  In contrast, features may be added to free software if only one
user calls for them...

As for whether or not a feature is confusing, RTFM.

And if a feature is buggy, then the vendor isn't doing their job in
the quality assurance department.  If they don't provide the level
of robustness that their customers demand, then they'll go elsewhere.

I find it funny that you would use this particular argument to defend
CVS, which itself has a number of features that are not only useless and
confusing, but buggy as well.

>--- End of forwarded message from address@hidden