Re: [Monotone-devel] Re: SCMS question

richard(at)levitte(dot)org (Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker) writes:
> In message <45DDC702(dot)4060205(at)bluegap(dot)ch> on Thu, 22 Feb 2007 17:38:26 +0100, Markus Schiltknecht <markus(at)bluegap(dot)ch> said:
>
> markus> > So far, I'm getting the sense that there are a lot of
> markus> > opinions on what replacement system to use, a bit carelessly
> markus> > before having answered the above questions thoroughly.
> markus>
> markus> How did you get that impression?
>
> You said it yourself: Most PostgreSQL developers currently want to
> stay with CVS.

I'm not certain that is, statistically, the case.

> Unless there's a majority that wants to move on, I doubt there will be
> a move. In the end, it has to be a group effort, or it will simply
> not happen.

The trouble is that there needs to be a sufficient plurality in favor
of *a particular move onwards* in order for it to happen.

Right now, what we see is:

- Some that are fine with status quo
- Some that are keen on Subversion
- Others keen on Monotone
- Others considering other options; Darcs, Git, Mercurial, Arch...

There's no majority there, for sure. No plurality, either.

There has been a "convulsion" of activity surrounding SCM in the last
couple of years, and I think that the brief trouble that the Linux
kernel had with Bitkeeper going away has been an *excellent* thing as
it drew developers to work on the (long languishing) SCM problem.

It looks as though there is a strong "plurality" of PostgreSQL
developers that are waiting for some alternative to become dominant.
I suspect THAT will never happen.

I think instead, that we will see three or maybe four of the newer
SCMs being jointly dominant.

- Subversion has a clear body of happy-enough users for Subversion to
continue.

- Git, being the Linux kernel SCM, will continue unless some
heretofore undiscovered fatal flaw bites it.

- Mercurial seems to have enough user projects to be viable.
(OpenSolaris, ALSA, Xen, ZFS for Linux are probably recognizable
names...)

It seems plausible that one of [Arch, Darcs, Monotone] would also
survive.

This contradicts the notion of there being any single dominant
successor to CVS; if that were the case, that would make a migration
clear.

I think, instead, that we'll continue to see a multiplicity of
choices, meaning that the best we can do is to eventually pick one.
There isn't enough of a 'plurality' of support for any one SCM to
allow that to take place now.
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "ofni.secnanifxunil" "@" "enworbbc"))
http://linuxfinances.info/info/finances.html
Rules of the Evil Overlord #189. "I will never tell the hero "Yes I
was the one who did it, but you'll never be able to prove it to that
incompetent old fool." Chances are, that incompetent old fool is
standing behind the curtain." <http://www.eviloverlord.com/>