When will CVS be replaced by modern version control system?

[Les Mikesell]

Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> 
>> How does the 
>> kernel work?  That's one thing common to all distros that already has a 
>> distributed SCM.
> 
> Distros still use tarballs to build their kernel packages and even if
> they didn't the kernel is special: there are very few projects so
> central we know their SCM is not going to change or disappear suddenly.

Perhaps if you started by taking advantage of the kernel's situation, 
other things might adapt to the same conventions with a distributed SCM 
that can't disappear.

>>  > The huge
>>> nice property or release archives is they are scarce and not a
>>> continuum. That means everyone uses the same archives. A SCM feed is
>>> something else altogether: suddenly you're not using the same release
>>> as everyone else plus known patches, you're using a state others may
>>> not have picked, and you don't get the benefits of cross-distro
>>> testing (and annoyed upstreams because Fedora bugs are always
>>> different from other user bugs)
>> That should be a matter of appropriate tagging.
> 
> We can't even get all upstreams to agree on a common sane archive naming
> and numbering and you want us to posit they'll have sane SCM tagging
> conventions?

First someone has to propose a convention and demonstrate the advantages 
of using it.  Whether 'all' upstreams follow or not won't matter since 
you'll have to be able to deal with a mix of old/new techniques for any 
change anyway.  If there is an advantage and any follow you've gained 
something.

> And that does not change the fact even a perfect SCM offers many more
> pull points than a release archive process, so you still lose the
> "everyone tests the same version" effect.

Errr, fedora hardly seems like the right place to be complaining about 
other people's releases not being stable...

>> In most cases there 
>> would already be a direct mapping of SCM tags to tarball releases.
> 
> Quite the contrary, this is the exception not the rule. Most projects
> have tags that approximate releases, which is good enough for
> developers, but not for QA or audit trails.

I guess I'm surprised at that.

> Ironically Fedora cvs is one exception and that's only because koji will
> only build stuff when given a tag number, and generally speaking we have
> anal brutal dumb SCM procedures that force everyone to behave.

Yes, I've always considered the ability to reference things by tag name 
only and have it give consistent results to be almost the whole point of 
using the SCM, at least on the testing/release side of things.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com