Re: [off-list] CVS pains

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

() address@hidden (Karl Berry)
() Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:53:55 GMT

   1) It's not a matter of just changing savannah.  There are numerous
   (*numerous*) processes involved with web pages repositories, most of
   which are written, maintained, and controlled by the FSF sysadmins,
   not Savannah.  FSF sysadmin time is always at a premium.

Probably the slog away from CVS could be made easier if those scripts (i
presume) were more widely available.  Unless there are some glaring
security concerns (embedded passwords, e.g.), i think making a dist
tarball (released under GPLv3+) of the lot would be a good first step.

Then, Someone w/ time and inclination can coordiinate Others w/ time and
inclination to go through the basic refactoring exercise: abstract,
generalize appropriately, deploy in test env, fix design bugs, switch
backend from CVS to Git (pretty please :-D), deploy in test env, fix
implementation bugs, loop until thumbs-up for deployment in real env.

This still requires coordination w/ the sysadmin(s), but at least a good
amount of the work can be shouldered collectively, and more importantly,
away from the GNU servers until the fruit is ripe.  No source, no seed!

(Maybe such a tarball is already available -- if so, sorry for the noise
and where can i find this tarball?)

I used to do sysadmin work (VAX/VMS) and would have wept w/ joy if GNU
hackers (a formidable bunch) were to apply their skills to my mundane
tasks.  What i could have learned (that is, aside from most hackers'
disdain for VMS :-D)!  Maybe we find ourselves in a similar situation
now.

-- 
Thien-Thi Nguyen ..................................... GPG key: 4C807502
.                  NB: ttn at glug dot org is not me                   .
.                 (and has not been since 2007 or so)                  .
.                        ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES                         .
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