Let's stop using CVS for debian.org website

Boyuan Yang <[email protected]> Sun, 20 Nov 2016 10:45:54 +0800

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.www,gmane.linux.debian.devel.general
Organization	USTC
Message-ID	<1819286.me2eHcPanI@hosiet-tp>

(CC-ing to debian-devel for a larger audience. But please, use debian-www 
instead of debian-devel for the discussion to avoid the crossposting hell.)

Hi all,

As a newcomer who wants to contribute to the Debian website, I was shocked 
when I heard that debian.org website is still using CVS to manage the source 
code.

I know there is a saying that "If things ain't broken, don't fix it.". But this 
is nearly 2017 today, not 2007 or 1997. CVS is seriouly outdated and largely 
replaced by SVN (or even Git).

If we continue to use CVS in the website source management, the disadvantages 
are clear:

* All the shortcomings that exist in CVS but solved by SVN or Git.
* Fewer and fewer people know how to manipulate with CVS, and most of the 
others won't be willing to learn it.
* Difficulty in setting up modern web interface. (Compare viewvc with GitHub, or 
for free software, GitLab or even cgit.)
* Difficulty in mirroring.
* ...which means the number of new content contributor would decrease.

Needless to say there are various tools that can help convert a CVS repo into 
a SVN repo or Git repo and they handle this job properly.

I know the migration to other version control system would not be trivial and 
hurt the current workflow, but I strongly suggest that we set up a timetable or 
future plan. So will debian.org continue to use CVS to manage its source code? 
If yes, when will we re-analyze this choice? If not, when will we do the 
migration?

Thanks!


Sincerely,
Boyuan Yang

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