Re: RFC: Central version control for Debian
Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> Recent discussions about auditing have gotten me thinking about Debian's use of
> version control (or lack thereof). Currently, the situation is left in the
> hands of individual developers. Many of them use CVS; some use other methods;
> some use no version control at all.
At the past two Atlanta Linux Showcases, there have been two main
themes of discussion. One is autobuilding all of Debian (and
build-dependancies are making that more and more possible, though there
are still hurdles). The other is checking it into cvs.
The idea we eventually decided would be a good one is to set up a system
and import all of the sources in debian into it. After that, the system
sits there and tracks packages as they are installed into the archive each
day, and grabs the new version, checking it into cvs.
The resulting cvs archive would be generally read-only, at least in the
beginning. Some developers may eventually opt to use it as the canoical
archive for their package (typcially people who have been maintaining
their own cvs repositories, and groups like the boot-floppies, I guess --
no need for two cvs repositiories in these cases).
But the good thing about doing it this way is it doesn't really change
how things are done now. Developers can opt to not use cvs if they
don't want to, and their uploads will still be automatically checked in.
There are some hurdles though:
- system size
About 2 x the total unpacked source size of unstable, or 25 gb. Call
it 30 gb to be safe, and this will need to be upgraded from time to
time just as does the debian archive.
- checking everything into cvs
This is a bit of a bear. Upstream tarballs that have CVS directories
or symlinks in them are the main problems. Other problems include
figuring out which files are binary and checking them in with -kb.
These problems are all surmountable though.
- tracking dinstall
Some degree of integration with dinstall is really called for.
Presuming we could find someone to donate the disk space, I think it
would be worth it. Matt listed some of the nice benefits it would yeild.
--
see shy jo
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