Re: sourceforge miseries

Hi Sam,

> I moved from cons.org to SF 18 years ago based on similar hardships.
> I understand your frustration ;-(

Thanks for the condolences.

> Now that git has clearly won against mercurial, I think any repo move
> should include switching to git - no reason to stick with obsolete tech.
> 
> >   b) Convert it to git and move it to savannah.gnu.org.
> >   c) Convert it to git and move it to gitlab.com.
> 
> why not d) github.com?

Github.com has a tendency of establishing a closed universe:
  - You can "fork" a github repo, but on github only.
  - Users can hide their email address; then the only way to contact
    a developer is through an "issue" on github. No way to contact them
    of you are not a github user. No way to write a private email.
  - Issue threads on github cannot be moved to another platform.

With Gitlab, on the other hand, I'm being told that they change the UI
every couple of weeks, adding new powerful features quite frequently.
So far they are not "closed": You can have your main repo (in git)
elsewhere, a mirror repo at gitlab, and run your continuous integration
tests at Gitlab.

> savannah has had its fair share of failures - security breaches,
> hardware faults week-long down times - over the 15 years that we used
> it.

Yes, especially around 2007/2008 there were week-long downtimes. This has
improved a lot since then: In my 5 years of active contributions with GNU
projects since 2009, I haven't encountered an incident worth remembering.

> seems that github is the most feature-full and reliable source host.

I think that both Gitlab and savannah have a good reliability too.
There was one known issue with Gitlab last year [1]; they surely have learned.

> unless ideology is at stake, I see no reason to use savannah.

My reason to use savannah is that it's continuously working fine,
and a familiar environment (same bug trackers as for GNU libffcall,
for example).

10 years ago, when GNU was under firm control of RMS, I would have
disliked to move to savannah as well. Nowadays, the control of GNU is
distributed across several people, who don't show a dictatorship
behaviour.

> another question is timing.
> I suggest not making a move until 2.50 is released and GSoC is over.
> The combination of repo move, release and GSoC may be too much.

I definitely intend to do the move ASAP, that is, before 2.50.
The two won't overlap.

So, my proposal is: Move the hg repository to savannah today (or ASAP),
so that we can continue to work on 2.50 and the GSoc students will not
be interrupted in their work.

The repository conversion for libffcall (from CVS) took me 2 days of work;
I therefore estimate that the clisp repository conversion to git will
take 2-4 days of work too.

Like Jean-Louis says, this can be done after moving off sourceforge.

Bruno

[1] https://about.gitlab.com/2017/02/01/gitlab-dot-com-database-incident/


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