On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 12:19 PM, Flavien <flavien-svn_at_lebarbe.net> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm looking for a way to convert our QVCS repository to Subversion
> while keeping the history, commit messages and all.
>
> The only thread I found on the subject dates back to 2004, and has
> seen no answer :
> http://svn.haxx.se/users/archive-2004-10/1104.shtml
>
> Hopefully the situation has evolved now and some of you have ideas
> on the subject. (note that I would also consider service offers as
> this operation is a one shot one).
QVCS is a very proprietary tool, and I have never seen it in action
after almost three decades of CM work. I checked with a few resources
that do Subversion migrations, and most have never heard of the tool,
and no one knew of a conversion utility. It looks like you'll have to
hire someone to write one for you.
And that's even if it is possible. In order to pull out the data from
an old version control system, you either need a public API or use the
various command line tools. Although QVCS has a command line toolset,
it's very sparse. Their webpage lists only a bit more than a dozen
commands, and unless you have the pro version, you can't do any of
these commands recursively.
It might be time to do a bit of triage. Getting all of your history
and commit messages is nice, but is it necessary? If you keep your old
QVCS system up and running, you'll still have access to your history
from that. A possibility is to do a limited conversion of just the
active branches and tags. Maybe even take the time for a bit of
repository restructuring -- move projects into more logical
arangements and get rid of the obsolete cruft.
Unfortunately, things have probably gotten worse since 1994. Back
then, many people refused to trust open source tools. Subversion was a
fairly new project. There were a lot of companies offering proprietary
version control tools. Now, even major banks are jumping on the open
source bandwagon and its gettng harder and harder to find people who
know these tools.
--
David Weintraub
qazwart_at_gmail.com
Received on 2010-11-15 20:02:36 CET