[development] FAQ: Why is Drupal still using CVS when X is a much better choice?

[Derek Wright]

On Aug 1, 2008, at 6:26 AM, Adrian Simmons wrote:

> Can we have a commitment that *if* everything needing to be done  
> that Angie kindly listed on http://drupal.org/node/289117 and links  
> therefrom *gets done* we *will* move?

Once upon a time, in a post someone with time and motivation could  
surely find, Dries wrote something to the effect of:

"I'd be happy to switch to something other than CVS _if all the  
dependencies on CVS are safely removed and addressed_".

(approximate quote from memory).

- The #1 dependency on CVS is project_release.module.
- The #2 dependency on CVS is all the CVS account creation stuff.
- The #3 dependency on CVS are the CVS commit log viewing pages,  
links on project nodes, etc.
- The best way to fix all of that is VersionControl API.
- There are pages dedicated to what needs to happen to get us closer,  
already linked from Angie's wonderful document.

If all that work is done, d.o is running VersionControl API with the  
CVS backend, the SVN backend is demonstrated to be stable and working  
on project.drupal.org, we've got the packaging script ported and  
working, we've got the CVS -> SVN import documented and working,  
we've got all the SVN access control worked out (per project like we  
have now, preventing commits to tags, etc, etc), we've got something  
like svn.drupal.org setup care of the OSUOSL, and we've got a team of  
documentation folks lined up to go nuts, I can pretty safely  
guarantee that Dries will say "Yay, go for it!".

That still doesn't answer the question of how the choice of SVN vs.  
XXX will ultimately be decided, nor if decree from Dries is good  
enough for the switch.  The lack of a clear process for making  
decisions like this continues to haunt us.  By default, a decree from  
Dries (if he's willing to make it) carries the day.  If not, I guess  
decree from Dries on how to decide will be necessary.

Meanwhile, it can't possibly hurt to at least move towards project* +  
versioncontrol_cvs as a first (monster) step down this path.  The  
other stuff will be pretty easy (relatively speaking) once that's  
done.  Hurray to Sam for volunteering to help.  But I can assure you  
that more resources will be needed to finish the job.

Cheers,
-Derek (dww)