dVCS vs. CVS

[Bastien]

The comparison between CVS and dVCS is necessarily limited because it's
hard to compared a decentralized system with a centralized one.

But let me simply point out this obvious fact: with a dVCS, you can do
whatever you would do with CVS -- and *more*.  The risk of switching to
a dVCS is not one of loosing functionnalities, but one of loosing those
developers who don't want to learn a new tool (I don't think there are
any here...?)

Another point: it has been said in this thread that, in dVCS, "The
'current development version' is a social, not a technical concept."
This is the most important fact about dVCS in general.  But be aware
that this might be misunderstood: it doesn't mean you lose control over
which developpement version is to be considered the "official" one (by
not technically defining it), it means that you make clear the official
developpement version is so by a social convention (not de facto, via
technical constraints.) 

Concretely, it means that people will work with the GNU dVCS repository
(wherever this would live) *because* they know this is the official one,
not because this is the only one.

I think this way of defining the current developpement version fits
perfectly with the role of conventions in Emacs development.

-- 
Bastien