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Posted to dev@subversion.apache.org by Mark Phippard <ma...@gmail.com> on 2011/08/04 21:20:29 UTC
[VOTE]: Default http-client for 1.7 Serf or Neon
We do not currently have a consensus for whether Serf or Neon should be the
default http-client library for 1.7. See:
http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/subversion/branches/1.7.x/STATUS
In the interests of getting to consensus, I would like for committers to
vote for their preference. I am not saying that the simple majority
decision of this vote should become the default. I think it will simply be
easier to come to a consensus if we all indicate where we stand on this
issue. I think we are all aware of the pros/cons of each option. If you
have remaining questions you want to ask or discussion points to raise, I
would invite you to start a new thread to do so.
My preference for the default http-client library in 1.7 is:
[ ] Serf
[ X ] Neon
--
Thanks
Mark Phippard
http://markphip.blogspot.com/
Re: [VOTE]: Default http-client for 1.7 Serf or Neon
Posted by Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>.
Stefan Küng wrote on Thu, Aug 04, 2011 at 21:41:42 +0200:
> On 04.08.2011 21:36, Greg Stein wrote:
> >On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 15:20, Mark Phippard<ma...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>...
> >>vote for their preference. I am not saying that the simple majority
> >>decision of this vote should become the default.
> >
> >Not until I'm convinced to remove my veto. We've discussed several
> >times that the future direction lies with serf, and I believe it is a
> >wrong choice to move us away from that. The issue tracker has not had
> >any serf-related bugs for a while, so there is nothing to indicate
> >"not ready".
>
> Nothing in the issue tracker is not really an indication of
> stability: many problems I had with serf (and other TSVN users) are
> not reproducible without access to private (non public) servers, so
> I never reported them on this list, and of course I wouldn't know
> what to put in an issue.
>
If a bug can't be reproduced publicly that doesn't mean it's not a bug.
But if a bug is not reported to dev@ or issues@, that /does/ mean it's
not a bug.
> Stefan
>
> --
> ___
> oo // \\ "De Chelonian Mobile"
> (_,\/ \_/ \ TortoiseSVN
> \ \_/_\_/> The coolest Interface to (Sub)Version Control
> /_/ \_\ http://tortoisesvn.net
Re: [VOTE]: Default http-client for 1.7 Serf or Neon
Posted by Stefan Küng <to...@gmail.com>.
On 04.08.2011 21:36, Greg Stein wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 15:20, Mark Phippard<ma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> ...
>> vote for their preference. I am not saying that the simple majority
>> decision of this vote should become the default.
>
> Not until I'm convinced to remove my veto. We've discussed several
> times that the future direction lies with serf, and I believe it is a
> wrong choice to move us away from that. The issue tracker has not had
> any serf-related bugs for a while, so there is nothing to indicate
> "not ready".
Nothing in the issue tracker is not really an indication of stability:
many problems I had with serf (and other TSVN users) are not
reproducible without access to private (non public) servers, so I never
reported them on this list, and of course I wouldn't know what to put in
an issue.
Stefan
--
___
oo // \\ "De Chelonian Mobile"
(_,\/ \_/ \ TortoiseSVN
\ \_/_\_/> The coolest Interface to (Sub)Version Control
/_/ \_\ http://tortoisesvn.net
Re: [VOTE]: Default http-client for 1.7 Serf or Neon
Posted by Branko Čibej <br...@e-reka.si>.
On 05.08.2011 04:52, C. Michael Pilato wrote:
> On 08/04/2011 09:47 PM, Blair Zajac wrote:
>> On the veto issue, it's odd that Greg is veto a revert of a commit change
>> that originally occurred on trunk and is now sitting on the branch. It
>> does seem odd one can veto the move back to the original default
>> implementation.
>>
>> Just wondering, couldn't we veto the commit that made serf the default?
> Eh... sounds like politickin'... let's not go there, please.
Speaking of politicking, I don't see any technical explanation for
Greg's veto in the 1.7.x STATUS, which causes me to wonder why anyone is
treating it as valid in the first place.
-- Brane
Re: [VOTE]: Default http-client for 1.7 Serf or Neon
Posted by Mark Phippard <ma...@gmail.com>.
On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 10:52 PM, C. Michael Pilato <cm...@collab.net>wrote:
> On 08/04/2011 09:47 PM, Blair Zajac wrote:
> > On the veto issue, it's odd that Greg is veto a revert of a commit change
> > that originally occurred on trunk and is now sitting on the branch. It
> > does seem odd one can veto the move back to the original default
> > implementation.
> >
> > Just wondering, couldn't we veto the commit that made serf the default?
>
> Eh... sounds like politickin'... let's not go there, please.
>
> The Subversion committers have consistently demonstrated a keen ability
> (and
> desire) to work out our differences quickly and without even resorting to
> something as formal as a vote. I mean, I can count on one hand the number
> of such votes ... maybe on one finger, even! I'm not even quite sure that
> a
> call for vote in this situation was really necessary, as we already have a
> mechanism in place for addressing the technical question before us (the
> 1.7.x/STATUS voting system). To the degree that we can avoid resorting to
> mere rule-by-the-majority and continue working toward peaceful consensus,
> the greater Subversion community benefits.
>
FWIW, I tried to be clear that my intent was simply for us to take the
temperature of this issue so we can all see where each other currently
stands on the issue. While Greg has placed a veto in STATUS there may be
others that agree with him and are not coming forward because they think he
is handling it. I just want to know how close we are to a consensus.
Every time we have tried to do this in the past, and sadly it has happened
again on this thread, it just winds up being side tracked into this back and
forth that is not getting us any closer to consensus or a decision.
I can really go either way on this issue. I believe the vast majority of
our users use binaries built by someone else. I believe most people that
produce those binaries are going to make Neon the default regardless of what
we decide as a community. Maybe that is the best of both worlds? Most
users will not be impacted and we will still get some bug reports so we can
make Serf better. That said, I do find it odd that we would even consider
making Serf the default at this stage in our project's lifecycle. We are so
conservative about everything else we do, why are we now willing to make a
change that we know has bugs just so that we can accelerate the reporting of
those bugs,
Finally, I also question the notion that Serf is somehow "modern" and the
"future" for this project. When Serf was proposed many years ago I was
pretty excited by the ideas and the improvements it could bring. On paper,
I still think those ideas all make sense, But we have had working code now
for a very long time and it is clear those ideas do not bring the benefits
that they did on paper. In the end, I care about those benefits. I want
Subversion to be faster and faster. I do not see us getting there with Serf
in its current form. Perhaps if ra_serf was changed to work like ra_neon
when it comes to checkout/update I would feel differently. This seems like
it would give us the same performance as Neon without adding the DOS,
slowness and memory usage of Serf. There are still other parts of ra_serf
that would benefit from the modern architecture. For example, merge seems
to be faster with Serf and there may be other commands like status and log
that we have not tested as much as checkout/update/commit that are also
faster. To me, this is the core of the issue. Greg and Justin seem to
still be clinging to the notion that Serf's approach is better but we have
working code that shows it isn't. Ivan proposed tackling this issue and was
shot down immediately. If we want Serf to be the default than acknowledge
this does not work and take a new approach that does.
--
Thanks
Mark Phippard
http://markphip.blogspot.com/
Re: [VOTE]: Default http-client for 1.7 Serf or Neon
Posted by Blair Zajac <bl...@orcaware.com>.
On Aug 4, 2011, at 7:52 PM, C. Michael Pilato wrote:
> On 08/04/2011 09:47 PM, Blair Zajac wrote:
>> On the veto issue, it's odd that Greg is veto a revert of a commit change
>> that originally occurred on trunk and is now sitting on the branch. It
>> does seem odd one can veto the move back to the original default
>> implementation.
>>
>> Just wondering, couldn't we veto the commit that made serf the default?
>
> Eh... sounds like politickin'... let's not go there, please.
Yeah, I was more wondering than anything else.
Blair
Re: [VOTE]: Default http-client for 1.7 Serf or Neon
Posted by Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>.
C. Michael Pilato wrote on Thu, Aug 04, 2011 at 22:52:03 -0400:
> On 08/04/2011 09:47 PM, Blair Zajac wrote:
> > On the veto issue, it's odd that Greg is veto a revert of a commit change
> > that originally occurred on trunk and is now sitting on the branch. It
> > does seem odd one can veto the move back to the original default
> > implementation.
> >
> > Just wondering, couldn't we veto the commit that made serf the default?
>
> Eh... sounds like politickin'... let's not go there, please.
>
> The Subversion committers have consistently demonstrated a keen ability (and
> desire) to work out our differences quickly and without even resorting to
> something as formal as a vote. I mean, I can count on one hand the number
> of such votes ... maybe on one finger, even! I'm not even quite sure that a
> call for vote in this situation was really necessary, as we already have a
> mechanism in place for addressing the technical question before us (the
> 1.7.x/STATUS voting system). To the degree that we can avoid resorting to
> mere rule-by-the-majority and continue working toward peaceful consensus,
> the greater Subversion community benefits.
Agreed!
Re: [VOTE]: Default http-client for 1.7 Serf or Neon
Posted by "C. Michael Pilato" <cm...@collab.net>.
On 08/04/2011 09:47 PM, Blair Zajac wrote:
> On the veto issue, it's odd that Greg is veto a revert of a commit change
> that originally occurred on trunk and is now sitting on the branch. It
> does seem odd one can veto the move back to the original default
> implementation.
>
> Just wondering, couldn't we veto the commit that made serf the default?
Eh... sounds like politickin'... let's not go there, please.
The Subversion committers have consistently demonstrated a keen ability (and
desire) to work out our differences quickly and without even resorting to
something as formal as a vote. I mean, I can count on one hand the number
of such votes ... maybe on one finger, even! I'm not even quite sure that a
call for vote in this situation was really necessary, as we already have a
mechanism in place for addressing the technical question before us (the
1.7.x/STATUS voting system). To the degree that we can avoid resorting to
mere rule-by-the-majority and continue working toward peaceful consensus,
the greater Subversion community benefits.
--
C. Michael Pilato <cm...@collab.net>
CollabNet <> www.collab.net <> Distributed Development On Demand
Re: [VOTE]: Default http-client for 1.7 Serf or Neon
Posted by Blair Zajac <bl...@orcaware.com>.
On Aug 4, 2011, at 1:50 PM, C. Michael Pilato wrote:
> On 08/04/2011 03:36 PM, Greg Stein wrote:
>> On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 15:20, Mark Phippard <ma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> ...
>>> vote for their preference. I am not saying that the simple majority
>>> decision of this vote should become the default.
>>
>> Not until I'm convinced to remove my veto. We've discussed several
>> times that the future direction lies with serf, and I believe it is a
>> wrong choice to move us away from that. The issue tracker has not had
>> any serf-related bugs for a while, so there is nothing to indicate
>> "not ready".
>
> Greg,
>
> It's obvious that you firmly believe that the future lies with Serf. And
> I'm aligned with you there (though with some caveats you'd likely disagree
> with). But nobody is asking about that future -- we're asking about the
> present. We're talking about taking what many believe to be a step backward
> in terms of the relative stability of Subversion as a whole for questionable
> (if any) gain. Sure, Serf's stability will improve the more it's used *and
> its bugs are reported* -- no question about it. I'm just not convinced that
> users will take the time to report an issue against Serf when an immediate
> workaround for pretty much any of their Serf-specific problems already
> exists ("I'll just switch to Neon"). Further working against this is the
> fact that our single most common binary package producer, TortoiseSVN, plus
> others are saying that for the sake of their user base, they'll switch to
> Neon by default anyway. Who then, will be using Serf and reporting to us
> its specific problems?
>
> I'm concerned about our effectively transmitting this message from the
> Subversion developers to its users: We've made the decision to
> intentionally offer you, by default, a product that is known to be less
> stable than it could be in exchange for ... nothing, really, except the
> benefit that *we* get (and then you'll get, by extension, some time in the
> future) by forcing you to be our QA department. That doesn't strike me as
> the embodiment of "community before code".
>
> All that said, if your veto hinges on the presence/absence of
> 1.7.0-milestoned bugs filed against Serf alone, that does seem fair to me.
> After all, it's practically impossible to "fix" what cannot be clearly (and
> reliably) demonstrated as broken.
On the veto issue, it's odd that Greg is veto a revert of a commit change that originally occurred on trunk and is now sitting on the branch. It does seem odd one can veto the move back to the original default implementation.
Just wondering, couldn't we veto the commit that made serf the default?
Blair
Re: [VOTE]: Default http-client for 1.7 Serf or Neon
Posted by "C. Michael Pilato" <cm...@collab.net>.
On 08/04/2011 03:36 PM, Greg Stein wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 15:20, Mark Phippard <ma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> ...
>> vote for their preference. I am not saying that the simple majority
>> decision of this vote should become the default.
>
> Not until I'm convinced to remove my veto. We've discussed several
> times that the future direction lies with serf, and I believe it is a
> wrong choice to move us away from that. The issue tracker has not had
> any serf-related bugs for a while, so there is nothing to indicate
> "not ready".
Greg,
It's obvious that you firmly believe that the future lies with Serf. And
I'm aligned with you there (though with some caveats you'd likely disagree
with). But nobody is asking about that future -- we're asking about the
present. We're talking about taking what many believe to be a step backward
in terms of the relative stability of Subversion as a whole for questionable
(if any) gain. Sure, Serf's stability will improve the more it's used *and
its bugs are reported* -- no question about it. I'm just not convinced that
users will take the time to report an issue against Serf when an immediate
workaround for pretty much any of their Serf-specific problems already
exists ("I'll just switch to Neon"). Further working against this is the
fact that our single most common binary package producer, TortoiseSVN, plus
others are saying that for the sake of their user base, they'll switch to
Neon by default anyway. Who then, will be using Serf and reporting to us
its specific problems?
I'm concerned about our effectively transmitting this message from the
Subversion developers to its users: We've made the decision to
intentionally offer you, by default, a product that is known to be less
stable than it could be in exchange for ... nothing, really, except the
benefit that *we* get (and then you'll get, by extension, some time in the
future) by forcing you to be our QA department. That doesn't strike me as
the embodiment of "community before code".
All that said, if your veto hinges on the presence/absence of
1.7.0-milestoned bugs filed against Serf alone, that does seem fair to me.
After all, it's practically impossible to "fix" what cannot be clearly (and
reliably) demonstrated as broken.
--
C. Michael Pilato <cm...@collab.net>
CollabNet <> www.collab.net <> Distributed Development On Demand
Re: [VOTE]: Default http-client for 1.7 Serf or Neon
Posted by Greg Stein <gs...@gmail.com>.
On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 15:20, Mark Phippard <ma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>...
> vote for their preference. I am not saying that the simple majority
> decision of this vote should become the default.
Not until I'm convinced to remove my veto. We've discussed several
times that the future direction lies with serf, and I believe it is a
wrong choice to move us away from that. The issue tracker has not had
any serf-related bugs for a while, so there is nothing to indicate
"not ready".
>...
My preference for the default http-client library in 1.7 is:
[ X ] Serf
[ ] Neon
-g
Re: [VOTE]: Default http-client for 1.7 Serf or Neon
Posted by Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>.
Everything else aside, normally when calling a vote you wouldn't mark
your own preference on the default ballot.
Mark Phippard wrote on Thu, Aug 04, 2011 at 15:20:29 -0400:
> We do not currently have a consensus for whether Serf or Neon should be the
> default http-client library for 1.7. See:
>
> http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/subversion/branches/1.7.x/STATUS
>
> In the interests of getting to consensus, I would like for committers to
> vote for their preference. I am not saying that the simple majority
> decision of this vote should become the default. I think it will simply be
> easier to come to a consensus if we all indicate where we stand on this
> issue. I think we are all aware of the pros/cons of each option. If you
> have remaining questions you want to ask or discussion points to raise, I
> would invite you to start a new thread to do so.
>
> My preference for the default http-client library in 1.7 is:
>
> [ ] Serf
> [ X ] Neon
>
>
> --
> Thanks
>
> Mark Phippard
> http://markphip.blogspot.com/
Re: [VOTE]: Default http-client for 1.7 Serf or Neon
Posted by Hyrum K Wright <hy...@wandisco.com>.
On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 2:20 PM, Mark Phippard <ma...@gmail.com> wrote:
> We do not currently have a consensus for whether Serf or Neon should be the
> default http-client library for 1.7. See:
> http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/subversion/branches/1.7.x/STATUS
> In the interests of getting to consensus, I would like for committers to
> vote for their preference. I am not saying that the simple majority
> decision of this vote should become the default. I think it will simply be
> easier to come to a consensus if we all indicate where we stand on this
> issue. I think we are all aware of the pros/cons of each option. If you
> have remaining questions you want to ask or discussion points to raise, I
> would invite you to start a new thread to do so.
> My preference for the default http-client library in 1.7 is:
After seeing a number of serf-related issues, and how these issues
continue to affect our ability to ship a stable 1.7.0, I feel it best
if we left the default with Neon for the 1.7.x series:
[ ] Serf
[ X ] Neon
-Hyrum
--
uberSVN: Apache Subversion Made Easy
http://www.uberSVN.com/