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Posted to dev@subversion.apache.org by "Hyrum K. Wright" <hy...@mail.utexas.edu> on 2009/04/06 14:18:32 UTC
[RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
I propose that we remove the contrib/ directory from our repository,
and from our distribution. A couple of reasons for this:
* Some of the scripts have licensing issues.
* We don't even keep the webpage claiming to describe these tools up-
to-date.
* We don't claim to support them, yet they are hosted and shipped by
the project. (In the early days of the project, it was useful to give
these unsupported scripts a place to host and a way to ship. With the
ubiquity of Subversion, and the availability of external hosting
sites, we should get out the business of providing project hosting for
these scripts.)
Thoughts?
-Hyrum
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Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by Blair Zajac <bl...@orcaware.com>.
Hyrum K. Wright wrote:
> I propose that we remove the contrib/ directory from our repository,
> and from our distribution. A couple of reasons for this:
>
> * Some of the scripts have licensing issues.
>
> * We don't even keep the webpage claiming to describe these tools up-
> to-date.
>
> * We don't claim to support them, yet they are hosted and shipped by
> the project. (In the early days of the project, it was useful to give
> these unsupported scripts a place to host and a way to ship. With the
> ubiquity of Subversion, and the availability of external hosting
> sites, we should get out the business of providing project hosting for
> these scripts.)
>
> Thoughts?
First, we shouldn't just talk about removing, but where to move it to. Removing
it without finding a new location for it is a disservice to the svn community.
We don't know how many of the scripts get used, so I don't want to delete them.
Also, I don't think we should just blow all the little scripts to the wind,
there's value in having them all in one spot. Do I want to host a whole project
for this single GPL script at some other repo, no, not really:
http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/trunk/contrib/client-side/svn_export_empty_files.py
So let's move contrib as a whole somewhere, such as
- up out of trunk into http://svn.collab.net/repos/contrib
- into a new Google Code project, say called svn-contrib or svn-scripts
svnmerge.py deserves to be in tools or its own separate project at Google Code,
but the rest don't.
Blair
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Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by "C. Michael Pilato" <cm...@collab.net>.
Justin Erenkrantz wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 7:18 AM, Hyrum K. Wright
> <hy...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>> Thoughts?
>
> IMO, a useful tool in contrib/ is svnmerge.py which I (and I know lots
> of others) use on a daily basis.
>
> I guess that the original authors were against us distributing it
> under anything other than GPLv2, but...well, I'm wondering if we could
> ask them again to let us relicense it and move it under tools/.
svnmerge.py is indeed one of those "special" contrib items that a) remains
semi-actively maintained, and b) sees widespread usage. If not tools/, then
perhaps a new Googlecode or Tigris project would be a suitable home for it?
--
C. Michael Pilato <cm...@collab.net>
CollabNet <> www.collab.net <> Distributed Development On Demand
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Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by Peter Samuelson <pe...@p12n.org>.
[Stefan Sperling]
> Ah, so things in tools/ have to be licensed under our custom Apache
> 1.1 licence. I remember that now.
>
> So why do we empose this restriction?
I think it is reasonable that if you want Project Xyz to distribute
your work, you have to license it under the same terms that Project Xyz
uses for everything else. If you don't agree with that, well, there's
like a million places to host free software these days.
--
Peter Samuelson | org-tld!p12n!peter | http://p12n.org/
Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by Arfrever Frehtes Taifersar Arahesis <Ar...@GMail.Com>.
2009-04-06 19:07:08 Stefan Sperling napisał(a):
> On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 09:57:34AM -0700, Justin Erenkrantz wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 7:18 AM, Hyrum K. Wright
> > <hy...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
> > > Thoughts?
> >
> > IMO, a useful tool in contrib/ is svnmerge.py which I (and I know lots
> > of others) use on a daily basis.
> >
> > I guess that the original authors were against us distributing it
> > under anything other than GPLv2, but...well, I'm wondering if we could
> > ask them again to let us relicense it and move it under tools/.
> >
> > *sigh* -- justin
>
> Ah, so things in tools/ have to be licensed under our custom Apache 1.1
> licence. I remember that now.
>
> So why do we empose this restriction?
+1 for allowing scripts under GPL license.
--
Arfrever Frehtes Taifersar Arahesis
Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de>.
On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 09:57:34AM -0700, Justin Erenkrantz wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 7:18 AM, Hyrum K. Wright
> <hy...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
> > Thoughts?
>
> IMO, a useful tool in contrib/ is svnmerge.py which I (and I know lots
> of others) use on a daily basis.
>
> I guess that the original authors were against us distributing it
> under anything other than GPLv2, but...well, I'm wondering if we could
> ask them again to let us relicense it and move it under tools/.
>
> *sigh* -- justin
Ah, so things in tools/ have to be licensed under our custom Apache 1.1
licence. I remember that now.
So why do we empose this restriction?
Stefan
Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by Justin Erenkrantz <je...@apache.org>.
On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 7:18 AM, Hyrum K. Wright
<hy...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
> Thoughts?
IMO, a useful tool in contrib/ is svnmerge.py which I (and I know lots
of others) use on a daily basis.
I guess that the original authors were against us distributing it
under anything other than GPLv2, but...well, I'm wondering if we could
ask them again to let us relicense it and move it under tools/.
*sigh* -- justin
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Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by "Hyrum K. Wright" <hy...@mail.utexas.edu>.
On Apr 6, 2009, at 10:44 AM, C. Michael Pilato wrote:
> Hyrum K. Wright wrote:
>> I propose that we remove the contrib/ directory from our repository,
>> and from our distribution. A couple of reasons for this:
>>
>> * Some of the scripts have licensing issues.
>>
>> * We don't even keep the webpage claiming to describe these tools
>> up-
>> to-date.
>>
>> * We don't claim to support them, yet they are hosted and shipped by
>> the project. (In the early days of the project, it was useful to
>> give
>> these unsupported scripts a place to host and a way to ship. With
>> the
>> ubiquity of Subversion, and the availability of external hosting
>> sites, we should get out the business of providing project hosting
>> for
>> these scripts.)
>>
>> Thoughts?
>
> In general, +1.
>
> As has been pointed out elsewhere, it's trivial to throw up a
> Blogger blog
> or somesuch for folks to share their scripts with the world. We are
> no
> longer in a position where we need to boost Subversion's adoption and
> acceptance by hosting the myriad tools and toys related to it.
> However, I
> think we should cruise through the contrib/ area first looking for
> items we
> might want to "adopt" into tools/ and support officially before
> whacking the
> whole tree.
Sure, but let's just make sure that we've got a genuine reason for
adopting and supporting these tools (and that the license terms are
sustainable) before doing so.
-Hyrum
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Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by "C. Michael Pilato" <cm...@collab.net>.
Hyrum K. Wright wrote:
> I propose that we remove the contrib/ directory from our repository,
> and from our distribution. A couple of reasons for this:
>
> * Some of the scripts have licensing issues.
>
> * We don't even keep the webpage claiming to describe these tools up-
> to-date.
>
> * We don't claim to support them, yet they are hosted and shipped by
> the project. (In the early days of the project, it was useful to give
> these unsupported scripts a place to host and a way to ship. With the
> ubiquity of Subversion, and the availability of external hosting
> sites, we should get out the business of providing project hosting for
> these scripts.)
>
> Thoughts?
In general, +1.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, it's trivial to throw up a Blogger blog
or somesuch for folks to share their scripts with the world. We are no
longer in a position where we need to boost Subversion's adoption and
acceptance by hosting the myriad tools and toys related to it. However, I
think we should cruise through the contrib/ area first looking for items we
might want to "adopt" into tools/ and support officially before whacking the
whole tree.
--
C. Michael Pilato <cm...@collab.net>
CollabNet <> www.collab.net <> Distributed Development On Demand
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Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de>.
On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 11:45:32AM -0500, kmradke@rockwellcollins.com wrote:
> Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de> wrote on 04/06/2009 11:31:54 AM:
> > On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 11:12:10AM -0500, kmradke@rockwellcollins.com
> wrote:
> > > The contrib directories are a way to get new developers onto the
> project
> > > with partial commit access.
> >
> > We can give people commit access to tools/ just as well.
>
> Good point.
>
> > tools/ is "supported" and contrib/ is not.
> > That's the only distinction I am aware of.
>
> That does imply there may be a "higher bar" to getting
> something put into a "supported" directory.
I don't know. I think the initial distinction between those
two directories is now unnecessary.
> This is probably good, but may turn away some potential
> committers or some scripts/tools...
If it does turn away potential committers, we're doing it wrong.
But I don't see that happening.
Keep in mind that there are already many great things maintained
outside of tools/ and contrib/, such as the stuff I linked to earlier
in this thread. Scripts can live outside of tools/ and still be
successful and useful.
> > > If I could vote, I would limit it to cleaning up license issues
> > > and not packaging the scripts, but maintain a location for people
> > > to share them. (This doesn't have to be /contrib, but needs to
> > > be something lightweight.)
> >
> > Is tools/ good enough?
>
> Depends if my script gets moved... :)
If it is useful to people and you are maintaining it, I don't see
why it should be dropped.
Stefan
Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de>.
On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 11:53:39AM -0500, Hyrum K. Wright wrote:
>
> On Apr 6, 2009, at 11:45 AM, kmradke@rockwellcollins.com wrote:
>
>> Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de> wrote on 04/06/2009 11:31:54 AM:
>>> tools/ is "supported" and contrib/ is not.
>>> That's the only distinction I am aware of.
>>
>> That does imply there may be a "higher bar" to getting
>> something put into a "supported" directory. This is
>> probably good, but may turn away some potential
>> committers or some scripts/tools...
>
> No, it may turn away potential scripts, but people can still contribute
> to other areas of the project. The whole point here is that, while some
> contrib/ content may be useful for developers personally, they don't have
> specific value for the project. As a project, we should let these
> scripts find homes which best suite them, and our repository isn't it.
Our repository isn't it because ...?
I still think that distributing generally useful and maintained
things in tools/ is a great idea, because it makes it easy for users
to find tools that are known to be useful and maintained.
I just don't see a point in having two directories for this purpose,
one of which contains stuff that is not maintained or with no licence.
I'd even go as far as offering the svn-load and pysvn people to migrate
into our repo, because their stuff is apparently useful and maintained.
Stefan
Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by km...@rockwellcollins.com.
"Hyrum K. Wright" <hy...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote on 04/06/2009
11:53:39 AM:
> On Apr 6, 2009, at 11:45 AM, kmradke@rockwellcollins.com wrote:
>
> > Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de> wrote on 04/06/2009 11:31:54 AM:
> >> tools/ is "supported" and contrib/ is not.
> >> That's the only distinction I am aware of.
> >
> > That does imply there may be a "higher bar" to getting
> > something put into a "supported" directory. This is
> > probably good, but may turn away some potential
> > committers or some scripts/tools...
>
> No, it may turn away potential scripts, but people can still
> contribute to other areas of the project. The whole point here is
> that, while some contrib/ content may be useful for developers
> personally, they don't have specific value for the project. As a
> project, we should let these scripts find homes which best suite them,
> and our repository isn't it.
I guess I really need examples of what goes away and what gets
moved into tools from the current contrib area...
I'm just a little concerned that many users may not be able
to find generally useful stuff if the Subversion project
doesn't provide a common place for it to grow...
(Again, I'm not tied to /contrib, I just think there
should be *some* suggested location, rather than "somewhere
on the internet"... Even a separate project on tigris
is an option.)
Kevin R.
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Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by "Hyrum K. Wright" <hy...@mail.utexas.edu>.
On Apr 6, 2009, at 11:45 AM, kmradke@rockwellcollins.com wrote:
> Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de> wrote on 04/06/2009 11:31:54 AM:
>> tools/ is "supported" and contrib/ is not.
>> That's the only distinction I am aware of.
>
> That does imply there may be a "higher bar" to getting
> something put into a "supported" directory. This is
> probably good, but may turn away some potential
> committers or some scripts/tools...
No, it may turn away potential scripts, but people can still
contribute to other areas of the project. The whole point here is
that, while some contrib/ content may be useful for developers
personally, they don't have specific value for the project. As a
project, we should let these scripts find homes which best suite them,
and our repository isn't it.
-Hyrum
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Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by km...@rockwellcollins.com.
Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de> wrote on 04/06/2009 11:31:54 AM:
> On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 11:12:10AM -0500, kmradke@rockwellcollins.com
wrote:
> > The contrib directories are a way to get new developers onto the
project
> > with partial commit access.
>
> We can give people commit access to tools/ just as well.
Good point.
> tools/ is "supported" and contrib/ is not.
> That's the only distinction I am aware of.
That does imply there may be a "higher bar" to getting
something put into a "supported" directory. This is
probably good, but may turn away some potential
committers or some scripts/tools...
> > If I could vote, I would limit it to cleaning up license issues
> > and not packaging the scripts, but maintain a location for people
> > to share them. (This doesn't have to be /contrib, but needs to
> > be something lightweight.)
>
> Is tools/ good enough?
Depends if my script gets moved... :)
Kevin R.
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Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de>.
On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 11:12:10AM -0500, kmradke@rockwellcollins.com wrote:
> The contrib directories are a way to get new developers onto the project
> with partial commit access.
We can give people commit access to tools/ just as well.
tools/ is "supported" and contrib/ is not.
That's the only distinction I am aware of.
> They also have a number of useful, but
> possibly not mainstream solutions to real problems.
The solutions that we want to keep should go into tools/.
The rest can (when it is not considered useful anymore)
or must (when there is no license) go away.
There is no reason to differentiate between tools/ and contrib/,
especially when you are talking about commit access.
As a packager for OpenBSD I found it very annoying having to
reorganise scripts from both directories into a common
/usr/local/share/examples/subversion directory.
> I would agree anything with unknown or questionable licenses should
> be moved. I could also see not including contrib in packaging
> a release. I would miss having one initial location to
> search for things instead of relying on Google to find it...
Note that the famous svn_load_dirs.pl is among the tools with no license.
There is a replacement called svn-load:
http://free.linux.hp.com/~dannf/svn-load/
But it relies on pysvn (http://pysvn.tigris.org/) which is a set
of python bindings not maintained in our tree.
Bit of a stupid situation. But it shows that alternatives are being
developed outside of contrib/ and tools/, and people are apparently
happy doing so.
> If I could vote, I would limit it to cleaning up license issues
> and not packaging the scripts, but maintain a location for people
> to share them. (This doesn't have to be /contrib, but needs to
> be something lightweight.)
Is tools/ good enough?
Stefan
Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by "C. Michael Pilato" <cm...@collab.net>.
kmradke@rockwellcollins.com wrote:
> The contrib directories are a way to get new developers onto the project
> with partial commit access. They also have a number of useful, but
> possibly not mainstream solutions to real problems.
Does our project history actually support this? Have we routinely seen new
full committers that began as contrib/ item maintainers? I'm not convinced.
--
C. Michael Pilato <cm...@collab.net>
CollabNet <> www.collab.net <> Distributed Development On Demand
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Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by km...@rockwellcollins.com.
Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de> wrote on 04/06/2009 10:46:41 AM:
> On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 09:18:32AM -0500, Hyrum K. Wright wrote:
> > I propose that we remove the contrib/ directory from our repository,
> > and from our distribution. A couple of reasons for this:
> >
> > * Some of the scripts have licensing issues.
> >
> > * We don't even keep the webpage claiming to describe these tools
up-
> > to-date.
> >
> > * We don't claim to support them, yet they are hosted and shipped by
> > the project. (In the early days of the project, it was useful to give
> > these unsupported scripts a place to host and a way to ship. With the
> > ubiquity of Subversion, and the availability of external hosting
> > sites, we should get out the business of providing project hosting for
> > these scripts.)
> >
> > Thoughts?
>
> Before we remove contrib/, we should check if we want to keep any
> of the scripts in there, and if so, move them into the tools/ directory.
>
> Otherwise, +1
The contrib directories are a way to get new developers onto the project
with partial commit access. They also have a number of useful, but
possibly not mainstream solutions to real problems.
I would agree anything with unknown or questionable licenses should
be moved. I could also see not including contrib in packaging
a release. I would miss having one initial location to
search for things instead of relying on Google to find it...
If I could vote, I would limit it to cleaning up license issues
and not packaging the scripts, but maintain a location for people
to share them. (This doesn't have to be /contrib, but needs to
be something lightweight.)
Kevin R.
------------------------------------------------------
http://subversion.tigris.org/ds/viewMessage.do?dsForumId=462&dsMessageId=1562822
Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de>.
On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 09:18:32AM -0500, Hyrum K. Wright wrote:
> I propose that we remove the contrib/ directory from our repository,
> and from our distribution. A couple of reasons for this:
>
> * Some of the scripts have licensing issues.
>
> * We don't even keep the webpage claiming to describe these tools up-
> to-date.
>
> * We don't claim to support them, yet they are hosted and shipped by
> the project. (In the early days of the project, it was useful to give
> these unsupported scripts a place to host and a way to ship. With the
> ubiquity of Subversion, and the availability of external hosting
> sites, we should get out the business of providing project hosting for
> these scripts.)
>
> Thoughts?
Before we remove contrib/, we should check if we want to keep any
of the scripts in there, and if so, move them into the tools/ directory.
Otherwise, +1
Stefan
Re: [RFC] Remove contrib/ from our repo
Posted by Martin Furter <mf...@rola.ch>.
On Mon, 6 Apr 2009, Hyrum K. Wright wrote:
> I propose that we remove the contrib/ directory from our repository,
> and from our distribution. A couple of reasons for this:
>
> * Some of the scripts have licensing issues.
There were at least two requests to fix them. So I guess the scripts which
still have license issues should be deleted.
> * We don't even keep the webpage claiming to describe these tools up-
> to-date.
I wanted to take a look at that before 1.6 is released but forgot it :(
> * We don't claim to support them, yet they are hosted and shipped by
> the project. (In the early days of the project, it was useful to give
> these unsupported scripts a place to host and a way to ship. With the
> ubiquity of Subversion, and the availability of external hosting
> sites, we should get out the business of providing project hosting for
> these scripts.)
I haven't seen bug reports or complaints about those scripts. That either
means noone uses them or they just work. One of those that works (at least
with 1.4) and that I still use is svnmirror.sh (which is similar to
svnsync but doesn't curse r0 of the destination repos).
So what's the cost if we keep them?
There are probably some which can be deleted. F.ex.
server-side/backup-recipe.sh seems to not be very useful.
We should look at each one and decide what to do with it.
Just my 2 cents.
Martin
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