Re: [Fwd: [arch-users] Re: Gud lord!]

[Robert Anderson <rwa@alumni.princeton.edu>]

On Mon, 2003-06-09 at 08:00, Juanma Barranquero wrote:
> 
> On 09 Jun 2003 07:37:24 -0700
> Robert Anderson <rwa@alumni.princeton.edu> wrote:
> 
> > Sure, and people could contribute if you read them the source over the
> > phone as well.  That's all they would "need."  Would you contribute if
> > that's all the facility you had?
> 
> I did (not the phone, the read-only access). Many people *do*, as I've
> said. I know, I end commiting quite a few of these patches.

With all due respect: duh.

> And forgive me, but the "phone line" example is a bit ridiculous.
> Read-only access to CVS repositories is tried and true.

So was hand-crank starter, or the ice box with daily ice delivery.

>It's not perfect, but is not *that* bad.

I find it unusable, but not mainly for that reason.

> arch, subversion, even BitKeeper if it was free, would perhaps be better
> than CVS; I'm not arguing against that. Just that CVS and read-only
> access aren't as great deterrents as you make it sound.

Care to show me the controlled experiment to demonstrate that? 
Otherwise, you are simply guessing.

 Just take a look
> at the very big and successful projects whose source control system is
> CVS.

Sorry, but this is an inane line of reasoning IMO.  I could equally
point out _massively many_ failed projects using CVS.  So what?

> Anyway, if I had to vote, I'd chose to wait for subversion.

That's because you don't understand either system, IMO.

> > It's not optimal, and neither is
> > working in an non source controlled environment for developing
> > substantial contributions.
> 
> No, it's not optimal, and certainly I don't remember having said it was.
> But even now there are people who does big contributions (I mean, not
> tiny patches of 5-10 lines, but changes of hundreds or thousands of
> lines) and who do not have write access nor (seem to) want it.

Sure, and monks used to scribe Bibles by hand and spread them around the
world.  I guess the printing press was never really needed.

Anyway: enough of the "CVS is good enough" thread for me.

Bob