Re: [savannah-help-public] No such user jeffnz in CVSROOT/passwd

[Bob Proulx]

Jeff Mitchell wrote:
> Whoops too late. I put Windows 10 back on my desktop PC.

Bummer!  :-(

> Apparently it's possible to use git/svn on Savannah,

Yes, of course!  Savannah supports most of the version control systems
for your project files.  This includes cvs, svn, git, bzr, hg, and tla
just off the top of my head.  That is for *project files*.

But for *web pages* you *MUST* use cvs.  The web pages are not hosted
on GNU Savannah.  The web pages are hosted on www.nongnu.org which is
an FSF system.  We, the Savannah admins, have no access to the FSF
www.nongnu.org web server.  We try to help people to work with it but
that is a non-Savannah function and we don't have access to it.  The
FSF requires cvs for the web pages on www.nongnu.org.

> the Emacs project uses svn instead of cvs.

No.  That is incorrect.  Emacs is using git for version control of its
project file.  Remember that is project files.  For web pages Emacs is
using cvs the same as everyone else on www.gnu.org.

> Why is cvs promoted so much in the documentation?

At one time cvs was the ad-hoc standard revision control system in use
everywhere.  It had replaced RCS which had replaced SCCS.  At one time
almost every project used CVS.  It was slowly over time that other
version controls systems appeared and became more popular than CVS.

These days cvs is rarely used for new project files.  But cvs is
continued to be used for many legacy projects that do not want to move
away from it.  For those projects if it works and there is no pressing
need to change anything then nothing needs to be fixed by moving.
Might as well just stay where things are.

And for web pages on FSF machines www.gnu.org and www.nongnu.org the
only way to update those files is through cvs.  Therefore if you want
to update web pages the only way to do so is through cvs.  The web
page access is one of those legacy projects of the FSF that requires
cvs and nothing but cvs.

There have been attempts to convert to using git for the web pages.
But the progress of those attempts is stalled needing FSF admin
resources because those are the only ones that have access to those
machines.  Until something changes we are limited to using cvs.  That
is just the way things are.  It is quite frustrating.  It is
especially frustrating to the Savannah admins.  Everyone thinks we
somehow have something to do with the FSF systems.  We do not.

Let me emphasize that Savannah is a volunteer run project within the
limitations imposed by the FSF.  Savannah is completely separate from
the web pages on the FSF machines www.gnu.org and www.nongnu.org and
we have no access to them.  They are a different organization.  If we
were the same organization then we would have allowed other version
control systems to be used already.

> I want something that can be extended with a nice GUI.

On Windows your best cvs client available is probably TortoiseCVS.
You should check it out.

  http://www.tortoisecvs.org/

Bob