6.0.0-beta13
4/11/26

[[toc]]

  • Options for replacing CVS for Horde Development

++ Decision
** We have decided to keep the current history and structure in CVS, and create a new Git repository. Code will be committed to the Git repository as it is cleaned up for PHP 5 and Horde 4. **

++ Introduction to distributed version control systems

++ Description
This project is to determine what the next generation of the Horde will use to store and organize source code.
Some initial work has been done with Git and SVN conversions of the current CVS repository.

++ Requirements
+++ Must-haves

  • Offline review of local changes
  • Ability to hook into Whups for ticket updates from commit messages
  • Stable, mature codebase
  • Functional, usable user interface

+++ Nice-to-haves

  • Submodule support

Today checking out a Horde app within an existing Horde checkout works fine. This includes making single-commit changes across applications.

  • Browseable by Chora

Naturally no matter what we choose Chora support will either be added or will improve. However if it is already supported by Chora all the better.

++ The Contenders
In alphabetical order...


+++ Bazaar
Bazaar from Canonical (i.e. the ubuntu company)

++++ Advantages

  • Seems to preserve the most metadata per-commit of any SCM listed here

++++ Disadvantages

  • Somewhat specific to Launchpad/Ubuntu development process

++++ Well-known users

  • Canonical/Ubuntu

+++ Git

http://git.or.cz/
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/tools/scm/git-report-final.txt
http://www.gitcasts.com/git-talk

++++ Setup

#!/usr/bin/env sh

cd /var/www/git/horde/
export CVSROOT=":pserver:cvsread@anoncvs.horde.org:/repository"

FILES="agora
ansel
chora

whups
wicked"

for FILE in $FILES
do
echo $FILE": "
git-cvsimport -C$FILE $FILE
done

++++ Submodules

I added a git submodule for every horde module inside the horde/horde
repository. Now you can do:

git clone git://git.koch.ro/git/horde/horde cd horde git submodule init

foreach modules as MODULE // Only those you want to use
git submodule update $MODULE // checks out the module

Now there are some more things[1] to think about when actually developing, but
that's one way it could be done.

++++ Disk space

ls -C -w60 agora goops jonah nag swoosh ansel groupware juno nic trean chora hermes klutz occam turba CVSROOT horde kronolith passwd ulaform dimp hordedoc luxor pearweb update.sh forwards hordeweb merk presentations vacation framework imp midas sam vilma genie incubator mimp scry volos gitgc.sh ingo mnemo sesha whups gollem jeta mottle skeleton wicked

/var/www/git/horde$ du -hs
928M

++++ Advantages

  • Distributed nature allows offline commits and easy branching

++++ Disadvantages

  • Does not preserve history across file or directory renames
  • Aimed at large-scale codebases with emphasis on features for those users (ie. Linux Kernel)

++++ Well-known users

  • Linux Kernel

+++ Mercurial

Alternative distributed versioning control system.

++++ Advantages

  • Distributed nature allows offline commits and easy branching

++++ Disadvantages

  • Toolset possibly less mature than other products

++++ Well-known users

  • !OpenSolaris

+++ Subversion

  • Chuck Hagenbuch has done some work on writing svn post-commit hooks. These likely can be reused for other SCM systems as well.
  • Ben Klang has dome some test conversions of the CVS repository to SVN. The repository size is indeed much larger. In addition submodule support (as we use it today) has not been proven to the satisfaction of the developers.

++++ Well-known users

  • Asterisk
  • KDE

++++ Previous discussion re: migrating Horde to SVN: http://bugs.horde.org/ticket/5284


++ People
While all Horde developers are interested in this project's final recommendation the following people have done work toward making a decision on the next SCM to be used for Horde:

  • Ben Klang
  • Chuck Hagenbuch

++ Resource Utilization Comparison

+++ Ingo

||~ SCM ||~ Full (Server) Repository Size ||~ Branch Checkout ||
|| CVS || 51MB || 7MB ||
|| SVN || 31MB || 16MB ||
|| git* || 18MB || 18MB ||

+++ Beatnik
||~ SCM ||~ Full (Server) Repository Size ||~ Branch Checkout ||
|| CVS || 736KB || 700KB ||
|| SVN || || 1.7MB ||
|| Mercurial || || 724KB ||

  • Note that for Git, repo size and checkout size are the same.

++ Resources

+++ Bazaar Links

+++ Git Links

+++ Mercurial Links


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