Re: source repository

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Nick Roberts <nickrob@snap.net.nz> writes:

>  >  > Just think how many man-hours will be wasted if every Emacs
>  >  > developer and contributor will have to install, learn, and set up
>  >  > an unfamiliar configuration management package.
>  > 
>  > Not so.  You were correct the first time: it's an "investment", not a
>  > "waste".
>
> It will be a waste if the chosen system becomes unsupported.  There seems to
> have been an explosion of version control software recently, and presumably
> some will sink into oblivion.  While CVS has undoubtedly presented problems,
> they are small compared to more practical ones such as finding people with
> the right skills who are willing to work unpaid on Emacs.
>
> Personally, I would like to see us change to a distributed system
> but would prefer to wait until there is one clear candidate.  I
> guess I could stand one change, but two would be too many.

Well, the hallmark of a good distributed system should be that people
can use it or not, as they choose.  The question of policy mostly
arises for the central repository.  The choice of CVS does not lend
itself well to interfacing with distributed systems, and part of the
reason is that basically every file is an isolated repository, with
its isolated content, its isolated change history, and a permanently
fixed place in the work directory.  And every branch becomes an
isolated repository as well, with no tracking of merges taking place.
And CVS has no place in its repository to actually store such metadata
about a file contents origins and history.

-- 
David Kastrup