Re: [Tinycc-devel] [PATCH 5/5] Fix gv for long longs

[Rob Landley]

On Saturday 06 September 2008 05:41:21 KHMan wrote:
> Laurens Simonis wrote:
> > You could also use bzr, which can also easily import cvs repo's, and even
> > still be a server for read-only cvs access, for those who still want
> > that.
> >
> > Check out the CVS section on
> >
> > http://bazaar-vcs.org/BzrMigration

My preference for hg is a personal preference, I also use git for projects 
that use that, and I even use subversion for a few projects that I'm not 
active enough on to bother creating a mercurial mirror.

Those are the top three source control systems these days (and really the only 
three worth looking at), and the only reason to look at svn is because 
Savannah already supports it and can convert your cvs repository into it (the 
way the qemu project went from cvs->svn) just by asking the admins to do so.

I note that the subversion developers themselves don't recommend subversion 
for new open source projects.  They recommend a distributed source control 
system like git or mercurial.  Instead, they continue to develop subversion 
for enterprise use, because closed-source development projects strongly 
prefer to be centralized so they can limit access to the code.

One of the subversion developers themselves wrote a nice summary about it 
here:

  http://blog.red-bean.com/sussman/?p=90

That said, I can work with subversion.  Busybox, uClibc, and qemu are all 
still using subversion for legacy reasons.  (Yeah, they're behind the times, 
but not _crippingly_ so.  Still using CVS in 2008 is like still using the 8.3 
single case filename limit of DOS.  There's no excuse for it, it's a symptom 
that the project was already dead)

A distributed mercurial/git approach has advantages, but it can't _prevent_ 
people from checking stuff into (and cutting releases from) the old cvs 
archive.  Which is what will continue to happen if anybody else does anything 
interesting, and thus nobody else will do anything interesting for long 
unless they have the stomach to synchronize their work with a cvs archive.

I suppose git is the most popular.  Here's a goggle tech talk where Linus 
Torvalds explains why he created git:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8

> We do have a sorta 'parallel' repository on Mercurial (hg) on
> ShareSource. Detlef is in charge, IIRC. But we haven't heard much
> of the hg repo on this list. I see mostly grischka running the
> show. Using bzr or git won't solve anything. We'd still need
> someone who is 'actively' in charge of the proceedings.

Anybody can set up a modern distributed source control system.  I set up my 
own mercurial mirror of the tcc cvs back in 2006, which is how my fork 
started in the first place.  Unfortunately the tool I used to do it with 
(tailor I think) was based on some python cvs library or some such that 
stopped working when I upgraded to Ubuntu 6.06.  If I tried to deal with a 
cvs archive with more than 255 entries, it truncated the commit list.  So 
when I moved off of Hoary Hedgehog, CVS support got left behind.

And nobody ever fixed the cvs package the converter depended on, because 
nobody cares about CVS anymore.  (Heck, even subversion use is rapidly 
declining in the open source world.  Booming in the enterprise market, 
though.)

Meanwhile, people kept checking new commits directly into CVS, without putting 
them on the mailing list, and I got tired of fishing them out.

> Our priority should not be revision control systems. Our problem
> is that we need two or three active devs can act on patches and
> discussions quickly, to provide that semblance of movement.

Once upon a time I was doing that.  And I'd put some effort into the project, 
and in response everything I did got copied into the CVS repository and them 
more changes got checked directly into CVS.  This happened three times before 
I took steps to prevent it from ever happening again.

That's why I changed the license on my fork.  I'd have no trouble granting 
LGPLv2 on my tinycc copyrights again, except that if I did that it'd all get 
sucked into CVS and then working on sheer momentum another half dozen changes 
would get checked in on top of that...  And I'd wander off again and the 
project would grind to a halt yet again.  It's pretty darn cyclical, and I'm 
tired of it.

> If we 
> have that, RCS issues will seem much less pressing. I think those
> interested and able to review patches should lobby to get cvs
> credentials.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who has zero interest in working on 
cvs.  Otherwise, my complaints wouldn't be _interesting_, because of the 
flood of other developers willing do it instead.

How many patches have been posted here over the years with no follow-up?

> We need what any good novel has -- "movement", or action to the
> effect that it creates the perception that the show is trundling
> along at a brisk clip.

My fork got up a good head of steam three times (and I was taking other 
people's patches), and then the cvs started up again and I walked away.  Now 
there's been a _release_ from the cvs, and I've walked a lot farther away.

*shrug*  If you're happy with that, by all means...

Rob