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Re: [lord@regexps.com: business models and revision control]

From: Branko Čibej <brane_at_xbc.nu>
Date: 2002-08-13 05:22:02 CEST

Tom Lord wrote:

> > Perhaps you could clearly and briefly summarize the point
> > that you're trying to make
>
>
>I think the design and implementation of svn is broken in some serious
>ways. I _might be_ mistaken, however, I formed this opinion late last
>year and the further I've progressed with arch, the more I've become
>convinced. If I am right that svn has serious flaws, then I also
>believe that a 1.0 deployment of svn can do serious harm to the
>community.
>
>

I must say that I still don't understand what you're getting at.

You say you're conviced SVN is broken. O.K., that's not far from the
truth -- we do have several design problems that we've been lugging
along for quite a while, and we're slowly getting them identified and
fixed. However, even if we don't manage to fix them before a major
release, I can't for the life of me understand how that can harm the
community. What community, specifically, and how would it be harmed?
Subversion (at least 1.0) is targeted mainly at CVS users, and as a CVS
user myself, I prophesy that particular community can only gain by
moving to SVN.

(Off-topic: If you think -- and from your other posts, I surmise you do
-- that there is only one target community for open-source software, and
that it's leading light is an idealised perception of Freedom, then I'm
sorry to say you're wrong. Personally, I use open source software and
contribute to open source projects first and foremost to make my life
and other peoples' easier, and I don't care a rusted farthing about
tearing down evil empires and creating utopias. Both will take care of
themselves, at their proper time, no matter what I do.)

BTW, while you keep saying SVN is flawed, you've never once told us
_how_ you think it's flawed -- always keeping in mind that Subversion's
goals may be quite different from your perception of what those goals
should be. I really would like to know, because while I see some flaws,
I'm obviously biased, and a fresh point of view would probably do us a
world of good.

You say you wanted to start discussing the patch format to (and I
paraphrase here) break it to us gently. How would that help? In fact, I
think it actually hurt, because -- while the intricacies of patch
formats are interesting in themselves, we already _have_ a patch format
that's sufficient for our needs, and there are so many more urgent
things to do that at this point, most of us don't have the time to
discuss abstract, low-priority issues. (I for one had that post of yours
marked in my queue for several weeks, but simply didn't find the time to
post a coherent reply.) It would've been much better if you'd just said,
"I think SVN is broken _here_ and _here_ because of _that_;" I'm sure a
very constructive discussion would have ensued.

-- 
Brane Čibej   <brane_at_xbc.nu>   http://www.xbc.nu/brane/
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Received on Tue Aug 13 05:22:37 2002

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