Re: GNOME DVCS Survey Results

["Jason D. Clinton" <me jasonclinton com>]

On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 8:51 AM, Olav Vitters <olav bkor dhs org> wrote:
> That isn't a contest. It is a survey.

Please don't read more in to my email than I intended. There's no need
to get defensive.


>> <http://www.gnome.org/~shaunm/survey/first-picks-permutations.png> It
>> seems to me that a lot of brain power, sysadmin time, and general
>
> I am a sysadmin and disagree with your notion that sysadmin time is
> somehow saved. I'd rather asses such things myself. Further, sysadmin
> time is not so important.

Thank you for voicing your opinion.


>> just all move on?
>
> Further, your explanation is incomplete. As you said, the graph is about
> people knowing two DVCS systems. I wouldn't say I knew 2. Those 6 are
> incomplete.

I highlighted this statistical analysis because those 6 contain the
subset of  4 vocal users demanding that we /also/ support bzr.


> Now before you reply: we have a clear need for git to work (ranked 1st
> 50% of the time, etc). But if you say "move on", how do you think a
> switch is made? Magic?

Please don't be patronizing. I'm not an idiot.


> Anyway, I'd rather add John Carr to the sysadmin team. I plan to make a
> proposal to switch GNOME to a DVCS where Git works using Johns
> suggestion. Then other sysadmins[1] can suggest whatever proposal they
> want. These proposals can be investigated on merit and then a one can be
> chosen (chosen as in: "go ahead and try if this would work", not "go
> ahead blindly"; everything must be tested before a cutover).

John's idea is a good one but it patently loses on technical merit. As
stated by John here, git will only be support in a degraded,
bastardized form because he chose bzr as the repository format:

http://blogs.gnome.org/johncarr/2008/12/11/dvcs-for-gnome/#comment-172

Are we really going to go back to the days of CVS where file moves
aren't supported?

It strikes me that this very vocal minority--John and Robert Carr,
Karl Lattimer and Rob Taylor (whom are four of the six people I
mentioned above)--are potentially delaying even longer what we've
wanted for more than two years, now. It is from these same people that
came the suggestion that git users were a rapid, vocal minority. Why
are we letting them derail this process?

Moving will not be easy, obviously. But doing it John's way will be,
in my technical analysis, an order of magnitude more painful.