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Posted to dev@subversion.apache.org by Bob Gustafson <bo...@rcnChicago.com> on 2003/02/26 16:19:57 UTC
Subversion use for Kernel work
There is a rather fascinating read at:
http://kt.zork.net/kernel-traffic/latest.html
(February 23 issue - might not be 'latest' in a few days)
Some excerpts are given further below.
The kernel is being kept in BitKeeper, which is a proprietary system, but
the proprietors have given free use to kernel developers. This grates on a
number of open source developers and from time to time (now for example), a
flame war erupts over the issue. (But you guys know all that already)
At the moment, there does exist an opportunity for the Subversion community
to make a full court press on getting subversion adopted for kernel use.
If it is ready.
BobG
===== Kernel Traffic excerpts below ======
Andrea liked the 'Binglish' comparison, but said:
...
After we can reach the data we can use any version control system
we want to manage it, I'm going to write MORE STUPID scripts to do that.
I'm been told of several giga archives with dozen thousand revisions under
subversion for istance (I know Al Viro blamed subversion code but if the
design it's good it may be a good start). subversion may not have all the
features
of bitkeeper but we can certainly add them over time, the only thing it
matters to me is that we get rid of being forced to use a proprietary
protocol to fetch the data.
The kernel CVS in more than enough for my/our needs and I thank
Larry for seeing it was necessary to allow the kernel data to be open. Now
there's no reason to argue anymore with Larry or Linus, they can choose
what they can legally use and we can choose what we can legally use and
what we find more productive in the long run. I really believe in open
protocols and open source software being superior and a necessary thing in
the long run, it's not that I advocate people to use open source products
and then I change my mind and I run proprietary apps to develop the kernel
(I don't put a smile here because clearly this isn't an obvious thought).
----
And Henning P. Schmiedehausen also said to Larry:
Linus stated in public that he was/is unhappy with CVS. Without
Bitkeeper he might use Subversion today. But by using Bitkeeper he made it
possible that you and your company started using him as your posterboy for
the "SCM good enough for Linus Torvalds to use". This is IMHO not correct.
BK is just "the first SCM which came along and was good enough for Linus
Torvalds to use it".
I do remember Linus saying that he wants to try out BitKeeper for
the 2.5 development tree and if it does not work out, switch to something
else in the 2.6, 2.7... cycle.
The rift that the whole BitKeeper/BitMover stuff has opened in the
kernel developer community IMHO justifies such a step forward . I'd like to
see SVN to be used as an alternative tool. Not because it is better (it
probably is not, but I haven't had a chance to try out BK because I don't
qualify for the free license) than BK but because it has no strings
attached to its usage.
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Re: Subversion use for Kernel work
Posted by "Edward S. Marshall" <es...@logic.net>.
On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 10:12:41AM -0700, David Waite wrote:
> Are there other large-scale open-source and free
> software projects which have looked at subversion and given positive
> feedback? And is this archived anyplace (such as the issue tracker)?
You might search the list archives for "Conectiva". They've been managing
their full distribution sources in Subversion for a while now. See
http://moin.conectiva.com.br/RepositorySystem for a few details of what
they're storing and the scope of it (quick stats: 7.7GB of data, 23000
unique revisions).
You might also want to swing past this page for an idea of some of the
projects being hosted in a Subversion repository:
http://subversion.tigris.org/svn-repositories.html
Hope this helps!
--
Edward S. Marshall <es...@logic.net>
http://esm.logic.net/
Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.
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Re: Subversion use for Kernel work
Posted by Ben Collins-Sussman <su...@collab.net>.
David Waite <ma...@akuma.org> writes:
> Other than this 'feature' [...]
It's not a feature... it's a whole different model of working. :-)
> [...] were there other reasons that subversion wasn't appropriate?
No other reasons. The Linux kernel just happens to be run differently
than a lot of other free software projects. The CVS model is usually
a great model for most projects; it's just not a good fit for this
particular one.
> Are there other large-scale open-source and free software projects
> which have looked at subversion and given positive feedback? And is
> this archived anyplace (such as the issue tracker)?
<advocacy>
You just saw an announcement about PythonCAD, and we have a list of
sites using Subversion already:
http://subversion.tigris.org/svn-repositories.html
I've also heard that SourceForge plans to support svn when it hits 1.0.
</advocacy>
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Re: Subversion use for Kernel work
Posted by Greg Hudson <gh...@MIT.EDU>.
On Wed, 2003-02-26 at 12:12, David Waite wrote:
> Other than this 'feature', were there other reasons that subversion
> wasn't appropriate?
The other issue I remember is that Linus wanted version control
operations to be fast. And, well, ours are slow right now. (By "fast",
he seemed to mean things like "svn status" on a kernel tree working copy
in one second. That's doable, but only with a model where you tell the
working copy before you edit a file, and probably also sacrifice
portability of working dirs.)
Of course, in a sane project organization, Linus's personal preferences
wouldn't be the sole criteria for acceptance. But I have no influence
over Linux project organization.
> Are there other large-scale open-source and free
> software projects which have looked at subversion and given positive
> feedback?
Not yet, as far as I know. It's a bit early in the game for that.
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Re: Subversion use for Kernel work
Posted by Garrett Rooney <ro...@electricjellyfish.net>.
David Waite wrote:
> Other than this 'feature', were there other reasons that subversion
> wasn't appropriate?
you mean other than the fact that it isn't 1.0 yet?
> Are there other large-scale open-source and free software projects
> which have looked at subversion and given positive feedback? And is
> this archived anyplace (such as the issue tracker)?
yes, other reasonably large scale projects have looked at subversion and
given positive feedback. some are even planning to begin to migrate to
svn once it hits 1.0. if any of them wish to speak up about it, i'm
sure they will.
-garrett
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Re: Subversion use for Kernel work
Posted by Garrett Rooney <ro...@electricjellyfish.net>.
Karl Fogel wrote:
>Dave Rolsky <au...@urth.org> writes:
>
>
>>There's been some discussion of switching from Perforce to Subversion on
>>the perl5-porters list. It's just idle chat for now, but Andreas Koenig
>>did build some tools recently that can create a Subversion repository of
>>the Perl source based on the changes reported by Perforce.
>>
>>
>
>Is there any way we can get those converters into our tools/ directory?
>
>
The tools in question seem very specific to perl's perforce repository.
Take a look at the readme,
http://search.cpan.org/src/ANDK/Perl-Repository-APC-1.059/README
and if you look at the scripts themselves, they include quite a few work
arounds for things like specific files in their repository that were
checked in as binary, and stuff like that. it works, but it's not
really a generic perforce to svn converter.
-garrett
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Re: Subversion use for Kernel work
Posted by Rafael Garcia-Suarez <ra...@hexaflux.com>.
Karl Fogel <kf...@newton.ch.collab.net> wrote:
> Dave Rolsky <au...@urth.org> writes:
> > There's been some discussion of switching from Perforce to Subversion on
> > the perl5-porters list. It's just idle chat for now, but Andreas Koenig
> > did build some tools recently that can create a Subversion repository of
> > the Perl source based on the changes reported by Perforce.
>
> Is there any way we can get those converters into our tools/ directory?
This is not a generic perforce to svn converter, but it can be used as
a basis for a generic one. As input, it takes patches generated by another
tool written by Andreas. It has also special knowledge about how the
perforce repository for the prel sources is organized.
For the details, see the doc :
http://search.cpan.org/author/ANDK/Perl-Repository-APC-1.059/scripts/perlpatch2svn
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Re: Subversion use for Kernel work
Posted by Karl Fogel <kf...@newton.ch.collab.net>.
Dave Rolsky <au...@urth.org> writes:
> There's been some discussion of switching from Perforce to Subversion on
> the perl5-porters list. It's just idle chat for now, but Andreas Koenig
> did build some tools recently that can create a Subversion repository of
> the Perl source based on the changes reported by Perforce.
Is there any way we can get those converters into our tools/ directory?
-K
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Re: Subversion use for Kernel work
Posted by Dave Rolsky <au...@urth.org>.
On Wed, 26 Feb 2003, David Waite wrote:
> Other than this 'feature', were there other reasons that subversion
> wasn't appropriate? Are there other large-scale open-source and free
> software projects which have looked at subversion and given positive
> feedback? And is this archived anyplace (such as the issue tracker)?
There's been some discussion of switching from Perforce to Subversion on
the perl5-porters list. It's just idle chat for now, but Andreas Koenig
did build some tools recently that can create a Subversion repository of
the Perl source based on the changes reported by Perforce.
-dave
/*=======================
House Absolute Consulting
www.houseabsolute.com
=======================*/
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Re: Subversion use for Kernel work
Posted by David Waite <ma...@akuma.org>.
Other than this 'feature', were there other reasons that subversion
wasn't appropriate? Are there other large-scale open-source and free
software projects which have looked at subversion and given positive
feedback? And is this archived anyplace (such as the issue tracker)?
-David Waite
Ben Collins-Sussman wrote:
>Bob Gustafson <bo...@rcnChicago.com> writes:
>
>
>
>>At the moment, there does exist an opportunity for the Subversion community
>>to make a full court press on getting subversion adopted for kernel use.
>>
>>
>
>Many people have brought this issue up before privately, and I wanted
>to make a public my usual response.
>
>We talked to Linus long ago about Subversion and CVS, and the truth is
>that the CVS/SVN "model" of version control just isn't a good fit for
>his work habits. He is first and foremost a patch-juggler, shlepping
>patches to and fro, reviewing them, and trading them around with other
>kernel developers like baseball cards. And this is *exactly*
>Bitkeeper's distributed-repository working model. My impression is
>that Bitkeeper has made him an extremely happy camper, and CVS/SVN
>would not.
>
>So I don't think it would be wise for the Subversion community to go
>on a "full court press" to force Linus to use Bitkeeper. If his cadre
>of kernel hackers someday decide to stage a coup, that's their own
>business. :-)
>
>
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>
>
>
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Re: Subversion use for Kernel work
Posted by Ben Collins-Sussman <su...@collab.net>.
Bob Gustafson <bo...@rcnChicago.com> writes:
> At the moment, there does exist an opportunity for the Subversion community
> to make a full court press on getting subversion adopted for kernel use.
Many people have brought this issue up before privately, and I wanted
to make a public my usual response.
We talked to Linus long ago about Subversion and CVS, and the truth is
that the CVS/SVN "model" of version control just isn't a good fit for
his work habits. He is first and foremost a patch-juggler, shlepping
patches to and fro, reviewing them, and trading them around with other
kernel developers like baseball cards. And this is *exactly*
Bitkeeper's distributed-repository working model. My impression is
that Bitkeeper has made him an extremely happy camper, and CVS/SVN
would not.
So I don't think it would be wise for the Subversion community to go
on a "full court press" to force Linus to use Bitkeeper. If his cadre
of kernel hackers someday decide to stage a coup, that's their own
business. :-)
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