Proposal: Subversion Migration

[Andrew Ruder]

Hello all,

I am proposing that GNUstep migrate to using subversion (instead of
CVS).  Gna.org (FSF France) has subversion hosting, and I believe Alex
Perez has already registered a GNUstep project there.

==
WHAT IS SUBVERSION
==

Subversion is a source management system similar to CVS.  It boasts
several benefits over CVS:

   * Deletes, renames, and additions are all fully versioned ( including
     directories ).  
   * Extremely cheap copies facilitate efficient branches and tags (and
     greatly simplify them in the process).
   * Similar commands will make basic repository manipulation quick to
     learn coming from cvs (svn co, svn update, svn status, etc..)

The excellent documentation at http://svnbook.red-bean.com has a section
on subversion for CVS users.  

Several other large projects have already moved to using subversion
including apache, samba, and subversion itself.

==
BENEFITS TO GNUSTEP
==

Subversion would greatly aid in large changes to GNUstep.  My vision is
that everyone (with appropriate copyright assignment documentation) be
given access to a branch (e.g. /branches/aeruder for me) that they could
use for private branches and development on gnustep.

Why?  I know there have been times where I personally have wanted to
work on GNUstep.  Unfortunately, there is no simple way for me to do so
without making just one enormous patch.  I'm sure others have submitted
large patches before that would have been much easier to do in small
pieces.  Imagine being able to do a bunch of work on making gnustep
compile correctly on gcc 4.0 and being able to send to the list:

  Please check out revisions 46:192 of branches/bheron/gcc-4-fixes to
  see the changeset to get gnustep compiling with gcc-4.

We'd have full history information on even the largest of patches, and
anyone could be given access to just a branch hierarchy.  A maintainer
can merge their changes into the trunk when their code is finished and
reviewed.

CVS branches would give us some functionality, but subversion is nicer
because it would give someone a full directory structure to experiment
with; a developer could do massive reorganizations of the code layout in
his branch and his branch alone (while maintaining full history).

When someone wants to pick up work on something a developer is doing,
it would be a snap to see the history on his or her branch.  They can
then join in or take over development.  As of right now, the best we
have is the last enormous patch (without history information) that is
sent to the list.  If he should disappear, picking up work based on that
patch alone is difficult at best.

Any thoughts?  I would be willing to handle the migration from CVS to
Subversion of GNUstep.  I think subversion could be just what GNUstep
needs to bring all development to one centralized place and would
foster rapid multi-user development, especially for those larger, more
experimental changes to the source.

Thanks,
Andrew Ruder

-- 
Andrew Ruder
http://www.aeruder.net