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Apache considered harmful

mikealrogers.com

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Re: Apache considered harmful

#111

Post by buff-a »

kahawe wrote: post #90
mcantelon wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there are some serious drawbacks for use of git Such as?

>> there are some serious drawbacks for use of git > Such as? The more important question is: what are developers really missing when they have to use svn to hack ASF's code in comparison to using git? (leaving github out of the equation, it is not git) You can hack locally to your heart's content and in case you want to contribute, you can diff and contribute. I don't really see the problem.

What you describe is the original use case for git: pull-based community development. So I can only conclude that you don't see a problem because you've never actually done it.

Re: Apache considered harmful

#112

Post by [deleted] »

kahawe wrote: post #90
mcantelon wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there are some serious drawbacks for use of git Such as?

>> there are some serious drawbacks for use of git > Such as? The more important question is: what are developers really missing when they have to use svn to hack ASF's code in comparison to using git? (leaving github out of the equation, it is not git) You can hack locally to your heart's content and in case you want to contribute, you can diff and contribute. I don't really see the problem.

[deleted]

Re: Apache considered harmful

#113

Post by [deleted] »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #108
kahawe wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am sorry to tell you, but you are plain wrong! Git is better. Please, do elaborate! In detail, why is git better than subversion if all I need is a central repository for a few people working at a company on one site, sitting in the same room with permanent network access. No distributed or remote or on-the-go development, no forks. > SVN embraces a workflow that is inferior. It is different but what exactly make…

In detail, why is git better than subversion if all I need is a central repository for a few people working at a company on one site, sitting in the same room with permanent network access. I was in exactly this situation at my last job (minus the same room, I was stuck in a separate office). In spite of the main source repo being SVN, we all used git-svn as our client. The main benefit is that git makes it easier to…

[deleted]

Re: Apache considered harmful

#114

Post by funkah »

suprgeek wrote: post #106

Some people at the ASF think that Git may have some issues so are not wholeheartedly endorsing it for any and all projects. Somehow this gets translated into "Apache considered harmful". Why is this even on the front page?

I would be seriously pissed if I donated my time and effort towards something like ASF, trying to help the open source world, only to be "considered harmful". WTF.

Re: Apache considered harmful

#115

Post by buff-a »

kahawe wrote: post #83
jaaron wrote: post #15

Ok, there's a lot to cover here. First off, the Apache Software Foundation isn't trying to absorb anyone or anything. Projects and people come to the ASF. It's a specific policy of the Foundation to NOT solicit projects. If someone says they're representing Apache and soliciting projects, they're wrong. Secondly, Apache is very opinionated about how projects should be run. This comes from years of experience as not o…

Spot on, excellent points and I could not help but wonder about the article... most people would consider "apache" to be synonymous for the httpd and not the ASF, so the headline is clearly fishing. Then, OP argues ASF's processes are broken and a github project with one maintainer is so much easier... you really have to consider the scale of the average sourceforge (back in the day) project vs. apache even back then…

So after telling us that your current environment is working with people who have a hard time with svn/cvs, forgive me if I find your opinion on git's ability to handle the requirements of large-scale, community driven development of the code that pretty much runs the internet to be utterly irrelevant. No. The kind of people who cannot handle cvs/svn update concepts are not the target demographic for a solution used to develop a fucking operating system or the worlds http server.

Re: Apache considered harmful

#116

Post by wyck »

..why isn't project x on git /rant

tl;dr

Github has a great social interface, it is a tool, there are others and there will be more.

Yes it is an evolution towards DVC + great social interfaces, older industry mammoths will be slower to adopt then newer more agile projects.

ps. I just switched from git to mercurial and it's a breath of fresh air.

Re: Apache considered harmful

#117

Post by buff-a »

jaaron wrote: post #65
mikealrogers wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is perhaps the most depressing response I've received to my article. As I said in my article this is far less about git and more about the chasm that has grown between Apache and the rest of the community. Your first two points boil down to "nobody makes you join Apache, if you don't like our policies then you can get out". How does this help Apache or its projects? Apache could still be valuable to the communit…

"How does this help Apache or its projects?" The Apache Foundation is what you make of it. It will not change just because you post to your blog, but it will change if you engage the committer and membership population, build a consensus around your ideas and volunteer to do the actual work to make the changes happen. No one will force you to do such work and if you don't want to do it, then you're not obligated to d…

Mikeal isn't arguing that Apache source should be put on GitHub.

He is saying that ASF would benefit from the kind of community development that git promotes as exemplified by GitHub and linux.

Re: Apache considered harmful

#118

Post by nirvdrum »

Just to get two things out of the way: I'm an ASF member (albeit not very active lately) and a huge fan of git with or without GitHub. I'm one of the many people advocating for git internally at the ASF. I have been met with opposition in the past, but a lot of it has been around who's going to maintain the infrastructure, given it's a volunteer system. Let's just take it as axiomatic that the ASF is going to self-host its code. So it's at least a fairly pragmatic argument. And I think we finally have a solution.

My real issue is with the bouncing back-and-forth the author does in his post around the notion of IP. It's a shitty topic that most devs don't want to be bothered with, but alas, it's quite important in the real world. And GitHub is mostly a landmine field when it comes to this. I don't think it's a failing of GitHub itself, but most projects just don't have licenses attached to them. Unlike with SourceForge, there's no requirement to have an OSS license on public projects. Then many that do fail to meet the copyright header requirements for the license. Or you could have a public project with a restrictive license [1]. Being public doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want with the code. This is dangerous and bad for OSS.

Apache gives you that protection. There's never any question about it. That's the primary reason projects go through the incubator -- to make sure the IP is all in order. It's an annoying, bureaucratic, but necessary process in a litigious society. But because of the care and protections Apache provides in this regard, I think they've done more to get OSS adopted in traditionally closed companies than just about anyone else.

[1] I came across Tom Preston-Werner's repo for his site. He's one of the GitHub founders. It's a public repo with a license that restricts usage of certain portions of the project (generally his content): https://github.com/mojombo/mojombo.github.com

Re: Apache considered harmful

#119

Post by EdiX »

kahawe wrote: post #98
ma2rten wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry to tell you, but you are plain wrong! Git is better. The problem is that SVN embraces a workflow that is inferior. But if you are not willing to change your workflow, git will seem confusing, indeed.

> I am sorry to tell you, but you are plain wrong! Git is better. Please, do elaborate! In detail, why is git better than subversion if all I need is a central repository for a few people working at a company on one site, sitting in the same room with permanent network access. No distributed or remote or on-the-go development, no forks. > SVN embraces a workflow that is inferior. It is different but what exactly make…

> Please, do elaborate! In detail, why is git better than subversion if all I need is a central repository for a few people working at a company on one site, sitting in the same room with permanent network access. No distributed or remote or on-the-go development, no forks.

Because with svn you end up having dirty working directories that go uncommitted for days because committing would break the build, as a result:

1. Everyone ends up making a second working directory because the first one they have is dirty with changes they can't yet commit and they need to make a quick change

2. Those dirty working directories are branches in practice, even if svn doesn't call them that, they are just dealt with with inferior tools.

Also: cherry picking commits from a branch into another branch isn't as easy, making a new repository isn't as easy, git is way faster at (almost?) everything (including large binary files), and being able to check the history when you are not in the office or connected to the VPN is nice.

However, I agree that the conceptual model behind DVCS is harder to understand, significantly harder, svn can be good enough especially for a small, local team.

Re: Apache considered harmful

#120

Post by nirvdrum »

mcantelon wrote: post #53
jaaron wrote: post #15

Ok, there's a lot to cover here. First off, the Apache Software Foundation isn't trying to absorb anyone or anything. Projects and people come to the ASF. It's a specific policy of the Foundation to NOT solicit projects. If someone says they're representing Apache and soliciting projects, they're wrong. Secondly, Apache is very opinionated about how projects should be run. This comes from years of experience as not o…

>there are some serious drawbacks for use of git Such as?

It's not terribly great when you have large files in the system. You end up with a huge repository on disk as those files change. But more importantly, you can't do a partial checkout of a particular path. I think I read that that'll be coming to git, which would be fantastic.
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