Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sun, 9 Mar 2003 16:23:05 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sun, 9 Mar 2003 16:23:05 -0500 Received: from dsl081-067-005.sfo1.dsl.speakeasy.net ([64.81.67.5]:64399 "EHLO renegade") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Sun, 9 Mar 2003 16:23:04 -0500 Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 13:32:46 -0800 From: Zack Brown To: Larry McVoy , "Martin J. Bligh" , Roman Zippel , "Eric W. Biederman" , Linus Torvalds , Larry McVoy , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone Message-ID: <20030309213246.GC25121@renegade> References:

<8200000.1047228943@[10.10.2.4]> <20030309172045.GP4170@renegade> <20030309195852.GA6647@work.bitmover.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20030309195852.GA6647@work.bitmover.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.3i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2303 Lines: 51 On Sun, Mar 09, 2003 at 11:58:52AM -0800, Larry McVoy wrote: > On Sun, Mar 09, 2003 at 09:20:45AM -0800, Zack Brown wrote: > > People in the know hint at these features ("naming is really important"), > > but the details are apparently complicated enough that no one wants to sit > > down and actually describe them. > > It's perfectly OK for you to go invent a new SCM system. Go for it. > But stop asking for help from the BK crowd. I haven't been asking you for help. I've been asking Linus and other kernel developers to describe their needs. There seems to be three camps in this discussion: 1) the people who feel that the hard problems solved by BitKeeper are crucial 2) the people who feel that the hard problems are not that important, and that a decent feature set could be designed to handle pretty much everything anyone might normally need 3) the people who want features that are not really related to finding a BitKeeper alternative. My own opinion is that the people in camp (2) are falling into the trap which has been described often enough, in which they will realize their design mistakes too late to do anything about them. Whil the people in camp (3) seem to be getting ahead of the game. The features they want are all great, but the question of the basic structure still remains. I think what needs to be done is to identify the hard problems, so that any version control project that starts up can avoid mistakes that will put a glass ceiling over their heads. Even if they choose not to implement everything, or if they choose to implement features orthogonal to a real BitKeeper alternative, they would still have the proper framework to raise the project to the highest level later. Of kernel developers, only Linus seems to have a clear idea of what the kernel development process' needs are; but aside from insisting that distribution is key (which people in camp (1) know already), he hasn't gone into the kind of detail that folks would need in order to actually make a decent attempt. Be well, Zack -- Zack Brown - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/