Re: source repository

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     Oh.  A pity Emacs still uses so old system.  I got used to Subversion
>     lately.
>
> We did not switch to Subversion because the people who develop
> Subversion are not sympathetic to the ideas of the free software
> movement.  That is a sufficient reason, given that CVS works fine.

It doesn't for continuously managing multiple branches of development.
There is a reason why Miles does most of the work in that area using
arch.

And the sympathy of CVS developers does not buy us much when there is
no active development or bug fixes for our sakes.  Of course, we would
not want to depend on a system with unsympathetic developers when it
is likely that we will depend on their further support or when their
system is not licensed as free software (which more or less implies a
perpetual dependency).  The Linux/Bitkeeper situation was such a one.

I actually use the outcome of that clash, the git system, for managing
local multiple branches and merges, and it works quite well.  Since it
is completely decentralized (it does not require something like arch
tags and can even cater for the history of split files and functions
moved into different files), people can use it without the need of a
centralized repository.

However, git's exchange functions with Subversion are much better than
those interacting with CVS, so I actually prefer working on Subversion
to working on git, even though Subversion does not really offer better
merge support.

One major point going for git is merge tracking: it keeps track of how
you resolve merge failures, and can apply the same solution when
merging branches in a similar situation.

git's developers, it being the Linux kernel source management system,
are a diverse bunch, mostly tending to agnosticism towards the cause
of free software.  However, they are responsive about problem reports,
and they have to use the system actively to manage a large-scale
multi-person project with lots of branching and sand-boxed
development.  And git is released as free software (GPLv2 rather than
Subversion's Apache/BSD).  Personally, I consider the "anarchism" of
it, namely that it is actually more or less each developer's personal
choice, not dependent on a central repository, whether or not he uses
git for working with others and preparing patches, an advantage.

-- 
David Kastrup