Introduction to Ubuntu Distributed Development

[James Westby]

On Thu Dec 17 13:58:32 +0000 2009 Adrian Perez wrote:
> I would like to have several DVCS for ubuntu development as we do in
> debian. We all have personal preference, and there's a main principle
> which says "working as a team, try to not make people fight their own
> tools", which for me means fighting against Git, and for other devs
> fighting against hg, monotone, etc. 

We don't work the same as Debian though, so working with your own tools
doesn't mean choosing a VCS at per-package level. I suggest that if you
are keen to use another VCS then you either prove its benefits by
bringing up a parallel infrastructure that benefits them, or possibly
for a better experience work on tools such as git-bzr, hg-bzr etc. that
would allow you to use your own VCS regardless of what the source is.

> Also, I'm not blind to the advantage of centralizing stuff and making
> working on random packages easier because you're always using Bazaar (or
> whatever the VCS will eventually be). 
> So, I might propose to have a voting on which VCS system we will use for
> our centralized approach, (if that hasn't happened already).

It hasn't happened as far as I know, and nor do I think it should.

For one, we don't vote on every change. While there is a place for it
I don't feel this is it.

Secondly, you would be proposing a vote where the outcome could potentially
require a huge transition to satisfy the outcome. Would you be committing
to do the work to complete the transition as well?

I'm not adverse to discussions of how we can improve the situation, but
a vote which would currently just be based on preference, with a large
transition cost, is not a productive use of our time.

Thanks,

James