Re: Debian-science: synthesis about VCS & repository structure
On Mon, 19 May 2008, Steve M. Robbins wrote:
I was merely reacting to Sylvestre's proposal that git be the ONLY vcs
allowed. My question stands: is there any real disadvantage to
allowing the user's choice of vcs?
I think there is. In the Debian Med team people sometimes do some changes
via script in the whole repository if there are some systematical changes.
For instance I remember that we first had
DM-Upload-Allowed: Yes
in many control files. It turned out that this was case sensitive and
so it was changed to
DM-Upload-Allowed: yes
automatically in the whole repository. This example might be weak because
you could argue that you could easily run your skript on two repositories
but experience shows that you tend to forget the other thing which is not
so interesting for whatever reason. Also the Debian-Med developers page [1]
shows the current activity in our SVN. If you have two repositories you have
to care for a mix of two repositories and there might be other tools invented
that gain an additional degree of complexity when having more than one
repository.
The main disadvantage I can think of is that it is a nuisance for
those who want to do project-wide work; for example, David Paleino
once set up a watch file for insighttoolkit. My response to that
objection is that (at least in my experience with debian-med) the
fraction of project-wide work is trivial and if I choose the minority
vcs, I'll live with not having the attention.
This is also a disadvantage.
The main ADvantage of allowing several vcs is inclusivity. You well
know that some refuse to use debian-med because it allows only SVN. I
hope debian-science won't repeat that mistake.
I agree that it is somewhat boring but I doubt that it is a problem of
the used VCS but rather a different kind of thinking which is connected
to the current discussion on debian-devel, how to store patches. So
I rather think the reason for not using the Debian-Med VCS is the policy
to have all patches in debian/patches than the used VCS technique.
Yes, I do appreciate beginner docs; I relied on them for learning svn
and quilt. I'm not adverse to learning git; but I will do it on my
terms, not in order to join debian-science.
Sure - you are always free to choose. That's the freedom we have as
volunteers. If Debian Sciece is not attractive enough for you than
you maintain your packages as you did before. The only chance to
draw you in is making Debian Science attractive enough that the
advantage for you (and others) is big enough. I hope many people will
work on this. ;-)
Kind regards (and thanks for your input)
Andreas.
[1] http://debian-med.alioth.debian.org/
--
http://fam-tille.de
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