Hi! * Boyuan Yang <073p...@gmail.com> [2016-11-20 03:45:54 CET]: > As a newcomer who wants to contribute to the Debian website, I was shocked > when I heard that debian.org website is still using CVS to manage the source > code. > > I know there is a saying that "If things ain't broken, don't fix it.". But > this > is nearly 2017 today, not 2007 or 1997. CVS is seriouly outdated and largely > replaced by SVN (or even Git). > > If we continue to use CVS in the website source management, the disadvantages > are clear: > > * All the shortcomings that exist in CVS but solved by SVN or Git.
Erm, SVN is in no way better than CVS, the only difference is that it has somewhat global revisions to replace the timestamps of certain commit periods. But that's technicly all there is to it. There are also some drawbacks. Most of the shortcomings aren't even relevant in the context, but that's something different. A shortcoming that git has over cvs/svn is that subdirectory checkouts aren't possible. Please don't be fooled and stay proper with your arguments. :) > * Fewer and fewer people know how to manipulate with CVS, and most of the > others won't be willing to learn it. That's a thing for every tool, and the few commands for CVS aren't difficult at all. Thing is, every VCS works differently. And the learning curve is extremely low for CVS (I mean, *really* low). That doesn't change the (partly understandable) stuborness of people not willing to learn, because CVS *is* ancient and I agree that it doesn't make much sense these days to dig too much into it -- even though, like mentioned above, it's really not big of a deal, at all: *) (once) cvs checkout *) cvs update (before starting to work) *) editor file *) cvs add file (if new) *) cvs commit A thing for a five minute crash course. :) > * Difficulty in setting up modern web interface. (Compare viewvc with GitHub, > or > for free software, GitLab or even cgit.) Well, "difficulty" is well said. Noone coded one because it's ancient and noone cares about it anymore. So "setting up" would mean code it from scratch. :) > * Difficulty in mirroring. As much or little difficulty as with svn (see above). > * ...which means the number of new content contributor would decrease. Sure, but everyone who brought it up was just venting and never started helping out with the task. Let's see. My first approach to get it into git reaches back to 2008: http://rhonda.deb.at/blog/debian/2008/09/16 Since then I invited everyone to help out and would have been more than willing to give a helping hand too, but I can't do the task on my own, I just can share my thoughts with the process. To some degree I see this similar to the website redesign talks that always popped up: Kalle was the first (and so far only) person who came up with a proposal that convinced me that he was really honest on wanting to make this happen, by thinking about more than just a fancy interface and create some mockup design but actually started to set up some real pages to test it with. That made me realise that it would be possible to do it with his help and get things done. Noone so far convinced me that they really would be willing to get this done and help with the task - so far everyone who brought it just came with blank statements how awful CVS is (actually, it isn't that bad) and never give a helping hand when they see what it might involve. I said it multiple times: I am more than willing to drop a lot of complexity that the current website tool offers (like in the translation check) if it would make it easier to convert. We just shouldn't a few things: *) Some translators don't have big bandwidth, so having a possibility to contribute translations without a complete checkout is somewhat a must. Especially when one finds a typo is should be possible to send a quick patch - and if one of the modern webinterfaces offers a quick edit possibility (authenticated), that would be a huge benefit. *) The buildprocess shouldn't take ages to figure out those things. Personally I am leaning towards a "git hash-object" number for using in the translation check because it's quite fast, can be calculated beforehand and is independent of the commit ID, because commit IDs don't really gain us anything here. And a "git diff <blob> <blob>" with the "git hash-object" is all we need. (Though, intermediate diffs of multiple changes are a bit more complex to calculate, but that's not the standard workflow and could be incorporated into the language stats webpages like it is currently: http://www.debian.org/devel/website/stats/ *) Subtree checkout might be a very useful thing - but I guess the handling of submodules is really a horror and we probably can get away with it. Maybe I'm coming up with more things that are stored in my head over the years thinking of the issues, but those are some hints along that lines. > Needless to say there are various tools that can help convert a CVS repo into > a SVN repo or Git repo and they handle this job properly. We used a git copy of webwml to work on the website redesign to rebase/merge the commits during the time to not lose changes, see http://git.deb.at/w/deb/webwml.git and also https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2010/11/msg00001.html > I know the migration to other version control system would not be trivial and > hurt the current workflow, but I strongly suggest that we set up a timetable > or > future plan. Timetable: IIRWIIR. That's the way things work. Unless you are willing to pay people for it so they don't need to do payed work during the period and can concentrate on it. > So will debian.org continue to use CVS to manage its source code? If noone is willing to do the work, probably yes, until DSA tells there is no way anymore to keep it running; and then hopefully more people are actually interested to make things happen instead of just saying "this is bad". > If yes, when will we re-analyze this choice? Whenever someone else comes along who just calls for "this is bad" without actually willing to help. > If not, when will we do the migration? Whenever you (not personal, rather to the broader audience) is willing to actually put in some work instead of just stating the obvious which is known since literally a century, at least. So long, Rhonda -- Fühlst du dich mutlos, fass endlich Mut, los | Fühlst du dich hilflos, geh raus und hilf, los | Wir sind Helden Fühlst du dich machtlos, geh raus und mach, los | 23.55: Alles auf Anfang Fühlst du dich haltlos, such Halt und lass los |
