Re: cvs better than git?

[Matthias Petermann <mp%petermann-it.de@localhost>]

Hello,

Am 17.06.2020 um 14:07 schrieb Johnny Billquist:
> My point is that you don't want to expose yourself to the risk. It's not 
> about them not being able to take the code and do what they want. But 
> how would you deal with, if all the code repository is outsourced, and 
> they suddenly decide to stop their service, or start charging for it, or 
> add a requirement that you have to include some stuff of their in your 
> code? If you've offloaded all that work and infrastructure, you are 
> pretty much at the mercy of whatever they decide to do. Start paying, or 
> adding adware or extra software is one thing, and ugly enough, but what 
> if they decide to shut down? What do you do then? You're going to have 
> to hunt around for the next service available, and use whatever they 
> offer. Which means a lot of work, possibly need to change tools, and so 
> on. Well, that might also sortof be a case even if you are staying with 
> one provider. If they decide to deprecate whatever tool/interface you 
> are using, you will have to switch at their mercy. It's not your 
> decision, or under your control. Neither the choice of tool, nor the 
> timeline.
>
> And this also goes into potential review and change of code. You have to 
> trust them that nothing is inserted, changed, or lost. And any tools for 
> automation are also dependent on what the hosting service offer or allow.
>
> There are all kind of risks. Arguments like "I don't think they would do 
> that" are sortof gambles. How much are you willing to bet on it? NetBSD 
> have been using one system for close to 30 years. How many of the 
> current hosting services do you expect to offer something stable for a 
> comparable time?
> Trying to recollect, I think SourceForce was what I was thinking of 
> before, which did ugly things to projects, making a lot of them suddenly 
> migrate away.
>
> And honestly, any hosting service today is in the end commercial. If 
> their business goes away, so will the service. And NetBSD might then 
> just become a collateral victim.
>
> I could go on about my objects, and the possible risks and issues, but I 
> think if this rant isn't enough to start you thinking, I doubt any more 
> text from me will change anything.
>
>    Johnny

Just one more question for my understanding: the selection of the tool 
is not synonymous with the use of external service providers who host 
the repository with the help of this tool. There are many alternatives 
here and that in the case of git the choice has to fall on github, 
hasn't anyone said? By the way - hosting Git repositories with e.g. 
Gitea is not so terribly complicated that I would hire a full-time 
employee for it. Given the case that the hardware of at least one 
central mirror can be financed through sponsorship funds, there would be 
no reason not to use github as a read-only distributor for the masses as 
before. And if there should ever be a problem, you can simply replicate 
the read-only mirror elsewhere - if need be, also on your own 
infrastructure.

Kind regards
Matthias