[Gllug] subversion

[Richard Jones]

On Mon, Dec 13, 2004 at 11:40:27PM +0000, Jan Kokoska wrote:
> Jan / one happy CVS user who might consider Subversion, next month,
> maybe

The real problem with Subversion (and CVS) is that they define a
priviledged class of "committers" who are allowed to use the
repository in read/write mode.  Everyone else gets to checkout and
update from the repository at best but basically are excluded from
using version control features at all.

It turns out that the priviledged class ("committers") isn't a
necessary requirement at all.  If everyone has their own repository,
which is basically how darcs/arch/bk work, then everyone can have the
version control features.  Changesets can pass between repositories to
synchronise them in a controlled manner.  It's then just a matter of
agreement which repository is "the" repository, or primary source of
the code.

The practical upshot of this is that I can develop free software and
it's much simpler for others to join in.  If I find another developer
willing to help out, I don't need to mess around with ssh keys giving
them a "committer" account on my CVS server.  Consider that most
developers will stick around very briefly, some will pop up from time
to time, and only a very few will become dedicated to providing
patches to the project.  I now no longer need to worry about which of
these will become "committers", but instead concentrate on whether or
not to accept individual patches.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones.  http://www.annexia.org/  http://www.j-london.com/
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