[crossfire] Crossfire Release Cycles/Methodology

[Lalo Martins]

On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 00:44:01 -0700, Mark Wedel wrote:
> Alex Schultz wrote:
>>> - Should we switch to SVN?  Switching repositories at same time as switching
>>>    what the head branch means would make the most sense.
>>>   
>> I agree that when switching what the head branch means makes the most
>> sense, however I'm not sure that to SVN would be a great type of move to
>> me. SVN from what I've seen does address some of CVS's weaknesses,
>> however I have heard that the way it handles branching for example is
>> ugly. Could someone with more experience with SVN comment on branching
>> in SVN? Also, if we are willing/able to move off of sf.net for version
>> control, it might be worth considering other version control options (I
>> personally think that if we don't use either SVN or CVS, we should see
>> if we can set up a read-only CVS or SVN mirror for people to download
>> off of who don't have the other type of version control software.)

I have written broadly over SVN a few months ago, I'd rather not repeat
myself: http://lalo.revisioncontrol.net/entry/oooh-lets-migrate-to-svn


>   I'm not sure how big a deal that really is.  It certainly looks like
>   SVN has
> nicer abilities to merge changes.

Merging between multiple branches -- in this case, potentially applying an
important fix to the trunk, stable branch, last release branch, micro
branch, and a branch frozen as candidate for the next release -- is not so
simple; even CVS does this better than SVN.

Merging between two branches -- eg trunk and stable -- more than once is
inconvenient in CVS and nightmarish in SVN.

>   As far as going to something else, I think it would have to be vastly
>   better - sourceforge provides a nice free environment - it keeps
>   things very simple - it is associated with a group, not a single
>   person.
> 
>   Something that is not free or associated with one person can become a
>   problem. Suppose there is some cool site that provides a nice source
>   control package for a relatively nominal amount of money

I don't think anyone's talking about a non-free alternative.  I believe
the idea is to try some proper revision control system like bzr (there's
free hosting at launchpad.net; you can host your own using only ssh and
a webserver), git/cogito (used by the kernel and many freedesktop.org
packages; I'm sure there must be free hosting somewhere) or darcs (again,
needs only ssh and http to host).

IIRC, we've had this discussion before... more or less once every 5 months
or so...

best,
                                               Lalo Martins
--
      So many of our dreams at first seem impossible,
       then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they
       soon become inevitable.
--
personal:                              http://www.laranja.org/ technical:
                  http://lalo.revisioncontrol.net/ GNU: never give up
freedom                 http://www.gnu.org/