Re: Prefer Mercurial instead of git

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso <jordigh@octave.org> writes:

> My main argument in favour of hg is not technical, but rather social.
> For GNU, I think it is far more important to support a project that
> aligns with GNU's aims,

Emacs shot itself in this foot with Bzr already.

> I also think that Matt Mackall (mpm), hg's very active lead dev, has a
> friendlier position towards GNU than git's maintainers do. As a
> result, hg itself is a strong defender of free software, they take
> active steps to enforce the GPL, and made steps towards moving to
> GPLv2+ whereas git is not going to do so.

Bzr anybody?  git is developed and employed by a large community.

> I think as a very prominent GNU package, Emacs would do well to offer
> a nod to an equally technically capable DVCS that is more aligned with
> GNU's goals.

Bzr anybody?

Git is not our dream project.  But it is Free Software.  It does not
align itself with the FSF, sure, but neither do the X Window system and
a number of other products we employ.  Git's lead developer Junio
Hamano, as far as I can tell, does not indulge in the rhetorics of Linus
Torvalds either.

When we support a fringe system, we need to ask ourselves what the
long-term objectives are in return for the cost we pay in dependencies
and in keeping people from joining our project.

What are the underlying technologies?  For Git, C and shell scripting,
basically core GNU facilities.  For Mercurial, Python.  That's nicer for
developers working on Windows, but what did we write GNU for if we are
going to let our technical choices be dictated by Windows to all
eternity?

-- 
David Kastrup