Re: irt: Re: Core statement on version control systems

[Elliott Mitchell <ehem+netbsd%m5p.com@localhost>]

On Wed, Nov 05, 2025 at 05:01:39PM +0000, Benny Siegert wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Nov 2025, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> 
> > IIUC it's not usually normal CVS commands which are the problem (though
> > using them incorrectly by accident is often a root cause of the
> > problem).  "cvs admin" is the one potentially risky one, though many of
> > its dangers can be controlled by restricting which users are in the
> > "cvsadmin" group -- i.e. limiting its use to experts who should know
> > better.
> 
> In current usage of the NetBSD repo, no one goes behind CVS' back to edit
> the repo directly, and I think most people are scared of "cvs admin" for a
> good reason.
> 
> You missed another, unfortunately much more common operation that changes
> all older commit hashes: If you delete a file with a $NetBSD$ line in it,
> CVS will more its ,v file to the Attic subdirectory. It will then go back
> and retroactively rewrite all revisions of the file with the changed path to
> the ,v file including the word Attic.

That seems a plausible explanation.  This argues for moving to either Git
or Mercurial, being rather more important than whether it is Git or
Mercurial which is moved to.  I thought this might be the case, but had
been unsure.

I dislike the damage which will be done to history due to the extra
transition, but seems that may be the lesser harm.  Just have to be
patient and wait a bit longer for Git to be primary.


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