Re: Moving pkgsrc-wip away from SourceForge

[Mayuresh <mayuresh%acm.org@localhost>]

On Sun, Jul 19, 2015 at 01:16:24AM +0300, Aleksej Saushev wrote:
> I'm fine with backup plans to move for reasons of continuity of operation,
> in fact I welcome such plans, but I dislike joining public hysteria just
> because some there's a big crowd fallen to it already. So far the only
> sensible reason brought up is noticably long and frequent downtime periods.
> If the latter true, I'd like to see some monitoring set up and see the
> resultant data rather than relying on human perception.

+1. At least NetBSD community is (or was) known to take decisions
objectively so far. I do not have own opinion on sourceforge, though on
CVS -> git, I see it predominantly a "let's follow the crowd" phenomenon.

Yes, a few objective points came up. Let me try and summarize:


1> It will attract more wip contributions

This appears the most emphasized reason. I find that more of a wishful
thinking.

Let us not forget that (despite pkgsrc being available on other platforms)
it is mainly NetBSD's usage footprint that influences pkgsrc
contributions.

It appears very very unlikely that there exist large number of
contributors desperately waiting to contribute to pkgsrc-wip but only CVS
turns them away. Is CVS such a big turn off to someone who has energy and
enthusiasm to volunteer effort to do contributions?

It appears unlikely to me personally, that there will be a sudden surge of
contributions to wip just by switching to git.


2> Lack of atomic commits in CVS

Yes, a very severe shortcoming. Honestly, that's the only one I spotted on
the thread so far, as far as pkgsrc needs are concerned.


3> Ease of merge etc. with git

We are forgetting how thin a package spec is as compared to the package
itself. I don't find this point much relevant for pkgsrc.


4> Having a local repository

Contributors can code "on the streets" is how this point is often
advertised. I really do not know whether that is really the case with
pkgsrc contributors. I hope not, for a system maintained with a lot of
emphasis on "do it right" mentality!

Local repository, IMHO is a fancy and extra baggage than a necessity.


5> git is the only replacement possible

Barring a few odd mails not much thought seems to have been given on other
options.


Having said this, I am not against movement to git, if majority of the
community feels so. I'd only wish if administrators could take a look at
git-cvsserver to keep all concerned happy, leaving the choice open.

Mayuresh.