Re: Distributed SCM in Gnome (Was: Git vs SVN (was: Can we improve things?))

[John Carr <john carr unrouted co uk>]

On Wed, 2007-09-12 at 10:13 +0300, Kalle Vahlman wrote:
> 2007/9/11, Bryan Clark <bclark redhat com>:
> > GNOME is not in need of a DSCM or any other kind of new SCM.  For source
> > control, SVN works fine, just like CVS worked fine.  I'm not looking to
> > argue the features of one DSCM above another or what we have now, but really
> > the controlling of the source code isn't the problem this DSCM debate is
> > circling.
> 
> The problem which prompted this debate again was the infamous SVN
> accounts lag. DSCM allows people to comfortably work with "their repo"
> and easily get a subset of their current work to a patch for
> submitting to eg. bugzilla. Currently, you'd need to take a checkout
> for each "line of work" you start unless you want to backup your work
> manually with svn diff (urgh). Not so hot, specially since if you are
> not on the net all the time.
> 
> If you can comfortably work without access to the central repo, the
> need for the access becomes less of an issue. Thus helping people keep
> patient with the accounts lag, possibly even making it unneccessary
> for some.
> 
> So, in my opinion, GNOME does need DSCM as a *part* of the solution
> for the current problems.

Both Git and Bzr have svn interoperability. Are these implementations so
broken as to not be useable by the DSCM-desiring people?

I've had a quick play with bzr-svn and it feels like quite a natural
step up from svn. It has the advantage that people who want DSCM get it,
it doesn't involve learning lots of new commands (very similar to svn
commands wise). And of course, for those of us that don't need it, we
don't have to use it. Finally, no infrastructure changes are needed to
take advantge of it either.

I presume the same is true with git-svn, thus avoiding git/bzr wars?

Just my 2p

John