FAQ Q: another version control system?

Do we really need another version control system? As I understand it, this is like a distributed, central-server-less, CVS, sorry, SVN server.

But why isn't such a feature set added into SVN? Why do I have to download another version control system just so that I can "git" libxcb and X11 so that I can compile gtk so that I can compile xchat so that I can go onto the IRC server for madwifi so that I can ask someone there why their wifi drivers don't create a /dev/wifi0 on my system so that I can get my wireless working????

Aaaaah.

[Cc: Peter <petervanbohning@gmail.com>, git@vger.kernel.org]

Peter wrote:

There is large difference between centralized and distributed SCMs.

Besides, thats like asking why we have so many Linux distributions, or why we have KDE, GNOME, XFCE, etc.

There is SVK which is distributed SCM built on top of Subversion. But there are some things that cannot be done because it uses SVN as engine. Performance is one of them.

You don't need to install git to download and install programs; there are tarballs and packages. You don't even need git to work on program and send corrections, although it is recommended.

On Wednesday 2007 May 02, Peter wrote:

I suspect you are a troll as your questions have such obvious answers that they hardly seem worth giving. Despite that, I'll answer them for the sake of the googlers who stumble on your message.

Why didn't the subversion guys just add their features to CVS? The subversion guys are not stupid people - why haven't they added these features to subversion? The answer is that they fundamentally don't fit. Distributed version control is not just something you patch in later as a feature - it is designed in from the beginning. Have a look at the monstrosity that is svk (distributed version control with a subversion backend).

Given that git is converting a lot of subversion/CVS users - including the projects you list above, do you not think that they might have had a reason for doing so? Don't ask git developers why they wrote git - go and ask those projects why they are using it.

Practically, I think you're overstating the difficulty of "downloading another version control system". On debian/ubuntu you would do:

 $ sudo apt-get install git-core

If you really did want to compile these things, then you would do:

 $ cd src
 $ git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/xorg/xserver.git
 $ git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/xcb.git
 ... etc ...

But are you seriously suggesting that you need to compile the latest and greatest X11/xcb/gtk/xchat just to chat on IRC? Why not just do

 $ sudo apt-get install xchat

If your distribution doesn't supply an apt-get equivalent then you must have picked one where you compile everything from source by hand - in which case - what are you moaning about - you did this to yourself?

Andy

On Wed, 2 May 2007, Peter wrote:

It is obvious that you are a fresh subscriber, since the answer to your question is given multiple times a day. Not like in "This is why you cannot enhance SVN to behave as Git does", but more like in "This feature of Git allows you to do [...]".

I can only invite you to sift through the mail archive. I _could_ point you to a really recent mail from Linus, which explains very much why SVN just cannot do -- however hard you try -- what Git can. But then, you would miss out on so many other interesting emails which you haven't read yet.

So, now it is up to you to actually invest some time and learn something.

Ciao, Dscho

On 5/2/07, Peter <petervanbohning@gmail.com> wrote:

If you are just a user trying to get a development version of libxcb, I am sure that you can download a snapshot -- if the project doesn't offer them formally, it'll probably have a "gitweb" thingy to browse the development history online that also allows you to download a snapshot. If it's really x.org they _definitely_ have gitweb (just like viewsvn or viewcvs). No need to get git.

If you are a developer, git knows a lot of tricks that svn/cvs don't, things that change how a large and broad project is developed. Lots of people find it worthwhile, so chances are there'll be a payoff to the pain of learning it. :-)

cheers,

martin