[INFRA-7524] migrate Apache Subversion project over to the git repo | Hacker News Reader

[INFRA-7524] migrate Apache Subversion project over to the git repo

issues.apache.org

82 pointschoult35 comments

Well, despite the initial "haha" reaction, I feel bad for the Subversion project team for all of the attention/politics they're going to get from this.

As you can see on the ticket, they'll already getting the usual Apache internal politics of "that's not how we did it in the 90s!" reaction to any infrastructure/tool changes.

And, with showing up on HN, they'll likely have everyone snickering at how Subversion is so obviously inferior to git that even their own dev team doesn't use it anymore.

When really they're just trying to do their job, with the tools that work best for their situation. (I assume, I have no internal knowledge of their decision, I'm just assuming good intentions.)

This is an April Fools joke.

No, it isn't.

Yes it is.

See, discussing is fun.

If it is, it's incredibly well played by Greg Stein. He's riffing off the oft-lambasted git/svn politics, private lists, etc. bureaucracy of Apache, which, to me, made the ticket seem really believable.

...will have to wait until 4/2 to see whether I'm a sucker or not. Although perhaps that means that I am either way. :-)

It seems you are a sucker. (With the utmost respect, of course)

https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/INFRA-7524?focusedComm...

Damn it. I was so sure, which is what makes this so clever, I guess. Well done to Greg, Jim et al

:-) Thanks, none taken.

See @jimjag's twitter feed (https://twitter.com/jimjag) for more discussion

Ok, that was very well done... ;)

Obviously Subversion is important from a historical perspective, there are so many repositories out there will need to be supported for some time, but it does seem like a flawed enterprise to keep actively developing Subversion. Wouldn't that time be better spent on a platform that's viable, like git, Mercurial, or some other experimental platform that might make a big breakthrough?

Everyone's bailing on that project, including Subversion itself. Isn't that a sign you should, you know, move on?

Even CVS is, sadly, still in use. Subversion, being far superior, is likely to itself remain in use in even more places well into the next decade. It'd be nice to avoid bitrot and see pain points further smoothed over.

I spent a month of my last contract writing wrappers to reimplement SCCS commands on top of SVN because that was the easiest way for them to migrate.

We still use subversion for binary file tracking - specifically Altium files and the like. In thus case, we heavily use the locking feature. Git does not fit well when merging changes is nearly impossible. In addition, the local copy size for Git would be way too large.

Would git-annex be a good fit for your use case?

I'd somehow missed this! Looks awesome. We already have started using git for some side projects that are public. Again, no central locking database, though I suppose we could use something out-of-band.

Doesn't Mercurial handle large binary diffs better?

Last I checked, you still needed plugins to handle locking though, which is unfortunate if you are dealing with nearly unmergeable files.

I know of a huge, highly profitable financial services company that was very pleased to announce (internally) their successful migration from CVS to SVN, in 2011. There's no way they're ready to move on.

April fools!

The joke's on them if they're not switching to something sane.

As a terminally gullible person, even I have doubts the Apache bureaucracy could really be this incredibly stupid.

April fools?

Seems so. Check the "history" tab in the "activity" panel, under "description":

"Pfft! Happy April's fool!"

https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/INFRA-7524?page=com.at...

If you look at the other comments, I think you deserve a promotion from terminally gullible to generally optimistic.

I have doubts anyone could be so incredibly stupid as to raise an issue in the INFRA JIRA as a joke. Note that requests are made to the ASF infrastructure team by creating issues in this project, such as provisioning and maintenance. Obviously @jimjag is taking a dim view of the request, but that's for different reasons; the (perceived) lack of transparency by the PMC when making this decision. However I think getting the infrastructure team to migrate a repository just for the LOLz would be seen even less favourably.

Or not...

This is an example of a pretty good april fools joke - Enough to cause an emotional reaction, but not so far out there that it is obviously fake.

Can't tell if April fools joke or serious.

April fools joke, obviously.

I hope it's an April Fools still, but here it is on Github:

https://github.com/apache/subversion

The mirror to git exists since quite some time. It's a read-only mirror though.

April fools! Take a quick look on the history tab:

>> Tony Stevenson made changes - Today 16: Comment [ Pfft! Happy April's fool!

>> For immediate release: Apache Subversion votes to rename itself Apache Irony, creates a black hole and disappears. ]

It's now official: "April Fools: migrate Apache Subversion project over to the git repo" - best tech April Fools yet. Pure genius.

Is this an April fool's joke? The discussion seems odd.

I LOLed

Seriously? Downvoting? Did you actually read the discussion?

"I would like to point out that the new community dynamic for git-based projects is different in many salient ways from a traditional subversion project. Voting in private, or even decisions by fiat of the chair, are most welcome in the new regime. It is good to see the subversion project embrace this new mode of project development in their smart exodus from the chains of the past." Joe Schaefer

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