Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Why we might use subversion instead of arch.

[Tom Lord]

    > From: Miles Bader <address@hidden>

    >  (1) It is basically entirely humanly accessible and even modifiable (with
    >      appropriate caution), using only common GNU tools (tar, gzip, patch).
    >      If all copies of tla were to suddenly disappear, you'd really have no
    >      problem extracting all your data, and you could even continue to
    >      commit revisions by hand!!!

It wasn't _quite_ literally this, but it's a sane and perhaps useful
impression of arch to think of it as being the automation of the kinds
of practices that GNU project maintainers used in the days before
Cygnus horked the world with network-enabled CVS.

    > [Note, I've only used subversion briefly, and don't really want to rag on
    > them, but what I know of their approach makes me _very_ nervous; arch's
    > simplicity and transparency, by contrast, is very refreshing.]

You don't have to rag on them.  Their approach is on the face of it
indefensible from an engineering perspective.

There is exactly one good reason to choose subversion over arch:
people with more money than they know how to use are investing in
subversion.  What problems may arise with it are likely to be solved
by some fool throwing money at them.

-t