Re: [9fans] Plan9 Sources Repository

[dante <subscriptions@posteo.eu>]

I would like first to thank everyone for the kind replies!
Each was useful in it's own way.

On 18.07.2014 16:36, erik quanstrom wrote:
>> Yet: is there a source control system behind it?
>> Would it be possible to check out directly from there?
>
> there is nothing most folks would recognize as a distributed
> revision control system.
>
> the repo is sources itself.  history is through history(1).
> you can "check out" code with cp(1), tar(1), mkfs(8); you can
> keep up with the repo with replica(1).
>
> patches are submitted via patch(1).

I would argument that the Status Quo has the following disadvantages
when compared to the the current usual way of doing things:

1. The history is confined to Plan9.
     It is hard to do small fixes (typos, documentation) from another
system.

2. There are no commit comments.
     There is no "blame" command.
     There are no release tags (allowing for unstable work in between).
     There are no branches (allowing for collective work on an unstable
version). OK, my machine is my branch...

3. Contrib packages are tied to people; there is no common repository.
     This leads to the situation where you can't update a package of a
long gone user.
     Please tell me how many Mercurial packages you can find in Contrib!

I maintain my impression that the Status Quo, though good for a small
team, does not allow the project to grow.
Were there any efforts to change this?
Or is it a controversial matter and it stays as it is?
Or is the team indeed so small (or even loosing members), s.t. that a
change won't make sense?

Kind Regards,
Dante

>
>> If there is none, could it be that this contributes to the lack of
>> popularity and to the fragmentation of Plan9 (9front, 9atom, 9legacy,
>> PlanB, other plans...)?
>
> i would think the "lack of popularity" can be most directly attributed
> to the closed license in the early 90s, when there was an unfilled
> niche,
> and linux was seriously lacking.
>
> i starting doing something slightly different when il was pulled from
> the distribution while i was in no position to stop using it.  it had
> nothing
> to do with source control.
>
> - erik