Re: Appeal for help on cvs2svn/cvs2git/cvs2...

[Kevin Grover <ke...@kevingrover.net>]

On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 7:01 PM, Karl Fogel <kf...@red-bean.com> wrote:

> Michael Haggerty <mh...@alum.mit.edu> writes:
> > [Please forgive me for spamming multiple mailing lists.  Followups
> > please to dev@cvs2svn.tigris.org.]
>
> Not spammy at all, I think.  This is totally on-topic for those lists.
>
> > I would like to announce that on 8 September our second child, a son
> > named Phillip, was born.  He was a bit premature and had to spend 2.5
> > weeks in the hospital, but he is home now and both baby and mother are
> > doing fine.
>
> Whew -- glad to hear both are okay.  Congratulations!
>
> > I see the following as the highest priorities for the near future of
> > cvs2svn:
> >
> > 1. Fix problems in the test suite caused by upstream changes in svntest.
> >  I will discuss this problem in a separate email.
> >
> > 2. Make a release 2.2 containing the improvements that have been
> > accumulating on trunk.  See [1] for a fairly up-to-date summary of
> > what's there.
> >
> > 3. Give Johan Herland as much encouragement and support as possible to
> > get involved with the cvs2svn project :-).  Johan has worked on his own
> > company-internal "cvs2git" converter called ConVerSion2Git that has a
> > lot in common with cvs2svn, and he has expressed interest in
> > collaborating with us (and has already submitted a few patches, thanks!)
>
> Johan, are you on this list?  Did you hear that? :-)
>
> > 4. Try to encourage people from the git, hg, and bzr communities to
> > test, use, and contribute improvements to cvs2svn so that it becomes
> > more useful as a tool to convert to those DVCSs.  All three of them have
> > "fast-import" extensions that in principle consume data formatted in the
> > "git-fast-import" format [2], but the extensions are in various levels
> > of maturity and all have quirks that might have to be accommodated by
> > cvs2svn.  And the documentation and user interface for converting to
> > non-SVN VCSs is still pretty primitive.  Finally, a certain amount of
> > evangelizing would help.  People have to understand that most other
> > tools are in fact broken!
>
> A marketing suggestion:
>
> It's usually counterproductive to say directly that all the other tools
> are broken (even if it's true).  Instead, stress the incredible amount
> of field-testing cvs2svn has had, its amazing "zoo" of pathological CVS
> repositories -- the finest such collection in the world, no doubt -- etc.
>
> Basically, make all the claims the other tools can't make, and then link
> to those other tools, so people can do the comparison themselves.
>
> > 5. Improve our branding as a universal "cvs2xxx" converter that can
> > convert to multiple destination systems.  I haven't heard any really
> > good suggestions for a new project name; other suggestions are welcome.
> >  So far I have been using "cvs2svn", "cvs2git", and "cvs2hg" to refer to
> > three of its incarnations, and one approach might be to claim the entire
> > "cvs2*" namespace.  But for project branding, it would probably be
> > better to come up with a new overarching project name to help people
> > understand that a single tool is being talked about.
>
> I completely agree.  How about "cvs2new"?
>

Names that seem good: cvs2x, or cvsconv (or even cvsconvert if you like
verbosity).

cvs2new does not seem seam good to me: at some point these VCS's will be
old, and 'cvs2new' will seem incorrect.



>
> > I also have no idea what has to be done at tigris.org to get the
> > project renamed; perhaps somebody could look into it?
>
> I think someone at feedback@tigris.org could help.  Most of this can be
> done manually: replay all the commits into the new repository, port over
> the old issues by reference (i.e., create a new issue for each old
> issue, then put bidirectional cross-links in the new and old issues).
> For the mailing lists, just link to the old archives and explain that
> they're old.  The tigris admins can help with porting over the
> subscriber lists.
>
> (It's important that all the old URLs stay valid anyway, so it's not
> like the old project is going away.)
>
> I'm sorry I can't help much more than this.  My excuse isn't as good as
> yours, but I do have one :-).
>
> -Karl
>
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