Re: [Savannah-hackers] Re: revision control systems

[Jaime E. Villate]

On Wed, Jan 02, 2002 at 10:03:09PM +0100, Norbert Bollow wrote:
> We have discussed this on the DotGNU Steering Committee and
> found that we're very interested in the additional features
> which `arch' seem to offers over cvs.  We also like that the
> plan is to release `arch' under GPL.

I think the correct way to proceed would be: 1) arch is released under the GPL
2) we get a copy of the released code and test it to see how all those
promised features work 3) we consider the possibility of replacing CVS by
arch.

> We would however like to continue recommending the use of
> Savannah ( see savannah.gnu.org ) for all components of DotGNU.
> Therefore the question becomes whether it would be possible
> (with reasonable effort) to integrate `arch' into Savannah.
> Bradley said that "Savannah isn't married to cvs" and suggested 
> that I'd put Tom in touch with savannah-hackers, and see what
> happens.

CVS has a server/client architecture. Changing the server in Savannah might
imply some major changes in the way the current repositories are set-up (we
cannot estimate how much work it would imply without having a working copy of
it). But the part that I see more problematic is the client: we would have to
make sure that the hundreds of Savannah users can easily accept the move from
cvs to arch.

> > Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2001 15:54:37 -0800 (PST)
> > From: Tom Lord <address@hidden>
> > 
> > Could you let me know if `arch' is interesting to you?  I'm trying to
> > find a commercial sponsor to help move it forward.  One obstacle I've
> > encountered is that arch is new so there isn't yet "enthusiastic
> > community support" for it -- a sort of chicken-and-egg problem.
> > 
> > `arch' is newer than other systems -- so it is less tested.  From a
> > hacking point of view, what I'd really want to be able to do is a few
> > months of intensive and focused testing and tuning, culminating in
> > applying it so some larger projects.

That's a problem every software package faces. I think that free-software
programs should be released very early to get user's feedback. arch should be
released and packaged for Debian before some small projects decide to use it
and only then can you expect some larger projects to adopt it. And keep in
mind that even if arch is technically superior to CVS, that's not guarantee
that users will accept it as a CVS replacement; there are some other
unpredictable factors in user's choices.

> >   Any patch set, for a committed revision, between a working copy and
> >   its ancestors, or between arbitrary trees, can be summarized in an
> >   HTML-formatted report, with lists of renamed files and directories,
> >   and hyper-links to individual file deltas, added files, and removed
> >   files.  This is a boon to developers writing log entries and to
> >   patch reviewers.  One of my favorite commands has become: 
> > 
> >     netscape --remote "openURL(`arch what-changed --url`)"

Will it work with a free browser too? keep in mind that we only use free
software.

Regards,
Jaime

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