Re: Git / Subversion Interoperability

From: Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>
Date: Mar 24, 2007, 20:31 UTC
Message-ID: <20070324203129.GA25571@muzzle>
In-Reply-To: <20070322224829.GA7048@c3sl.ufpr.br>

Bruno Cesar Ribas <ribas@c3sl.ufpr.br> wrote:

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> Hello,
> 
> I'm going to apply for the Git / Subversion Interoperability project.
> 
> I saw that there is no mentor yet assigned for the "job". So i'm sending this
> mail to get some help to start the project by submiting to GSOC and begin to
> work :)

I work on git-svn and I can certainly help you in some ways. However I'm uncomfortable committing myself to this because of time constraints; so I won't be signing up as a mentor. Sorry.

> My idea on this project is to create:
> 1.  git-svnserver

I'm not familiar with the internals of the SVN protocol, and my work with git-svn has sufficiently frightened me away from wanting to investigate further :).

I also suggest you write a HTTP/DAV-based server/plugin/cgi instead of relying on the SVN protocol. In my experience svnserve itself is quite finnicky.

> 2.  write a backend for Subversion

One key difference between git and Subversion is the design emphasis on data structures versus design emphasis on code/APIs. Subversion certainly tries to keep their APIs stable (and for the most part seem successful), but their publically available storage backends are definitely lacking.

I'm not sure this part of the project is going to help git very much unless it speeds up the libification effort.

Show 6 quoted lines

> And make it easy to work with SSH using those "common" flags in
> authorized_keys like:
> command="svnserve -t -r /home/svn --tunnel-user=bruno" ssh-dss bla bla
> 
> And as an idea i would like to make the same funcionality to git, as it is
> not as easy today to do something like above :)

One reason to work on your project is to help SVN users who have no idea what UNIX, ssh, and tunneling are. This is also why I recommend working on the HTTP/DAV protocol instead.

-- 
Eric Wong