[OPEN-ILS-DOCUMENTATION] Documentation repositories and bug tracking (was: Re: Documentation Hackfest & Going Forward)

[Joe Atzberger]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 9:39 AM, Dan Scott <dan at coffeecode.net> wrote:

> Note that Gitorious is another Git-based repository which, unlike
> GitHub, offers its platform under the Affero General Public License. I
> think it's worth considering using free software platforms to build your
> own free software.


Gitorious is weak in performance, featureset and adoption relative to
github.  I don't see that the OSSiness of the repo hosting service is any
more of a selling point than it would be for email, web search, ISP,
cellular and other services we make use of, unless we planned to install and
host it ourselves (which I don't see a valid reason to do).  The service is
more than just the result of the software platform.

Distributed version control like git and bzr make it much less of a big deal
where somebody chooses to host or post their repo though.  You can add
remote repo tracking branches and integrate changes from them with no more
difficulty than upstream changes.  For example, Chris Cormack (Koha's
original Release Manager) reports being connected to a dozen git remotes
from other developers around the world.  Whether those are github, gitweb,
gitorious, gitosis (hasenfeffer incorporated?) or direct SSH/git access
doesn't affect his ability to pull from them and make use of their changes.
 Similarly, he can push back to any set of hosts where he has access.  So
use whatever you like.

Worst case scenario would be that we would have to post a repo to another
host when our original host failed.  That takes about 3 commands and 4
minutes.  To start pulling from the new location requires a user to edit
just one config line.

The benefit of DVCS is that nobody has to ask for permission to get started
or make their changes available in a way that is digestible both to the
mainline repo and to other derivative repos.  In this case, the lack of
committers amongst the DIG group has been a problem since around December
when KGS left.  Considering that documentation is among the most likely
content to be contributed and managed by people who are not core developers,
it seems like a good occasion to make a DVCS workflow more viable.

--Joe
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