[Kolab-devel] Poll: Kolab server switching to Mercurial SCM?

[Richard Bos]

Op donderdag 25 februari 2010 18:25:02 schreef Gunnar Wrobel:

-1 (I do not agree, please add a short rationale)

> If I had to make the decision I would still go for git as I have the  
> impression that this is currently developing into the mainstream  
> successor following cvs / svn. The whole PHP world seems to have move  
> into github during the last two month :)

Not only PHP, but many other projects are moving to git.  I hardly hear 
anything from Mercurial.  It might that at this moment it is easier to move 
from cvs/svn to mercurial compared to git, but in the coming years when git is 
the code repository on the internet, Mercurial will be a stranger.  This may 
make it harder to attrack developers in the future.

I've no experience with either git or mercurial, so can't really determine 
which one is nicer.  The one thing I know is that files via urls offered by 
Git look stange to me.  On the other hand I would like to learn git, as this 
experience may be needed for other projects like KDE.  I don't believe I'll 
use mercurial for another project....  As I already mentioned KDE, the KDE 
developers will be using Git in the future and openSUSE already does.  If 
Kolab would move to Mercurial you force those people to learn yet another 
(perhaps similar, but still another) code version system.

> - Intevation has expert knowledge and operating experience in
>   Mercurial while only user experience in git.

Good point.  But Git will be more used in the future than Mercurial, so it 
might be good oppertunity to get more Git operating experience.

> - The web interface offers simple and short URLs for downloading
>   single files or patches, this is already used with the viewcvs
>   interface for user documentation and for patches which have to be
>   applied to e.g. Cyrus imapd to add features required by the
>   server.

Scratch this itch, isn't that the mantra of open source software.  Lots of 
other OSS project will benefit of short / simple url's.


> - Usage of Mercurial is easier to learn for people already knowing
>   CVS or Subversion, because the UI is quite similar, see e.g.
>   http://mercurial.selenic.com/quickstart/ or
>   http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/CvsCommands

In the future mercurial is stranger and not the mainstream.  It would mean 
more difficult to learn...


-- 
Richard