Except for you just now i don't think anyone is questioning the need for version control on the 3rd party dependencies. This tree was there long before i joined the blender project so can't give any insights on any controversy in creating it.
However whenever this subject (why svn) comes up, it tends to be one or both of these scenario's 1) svn is giving people a hard time, calling it "quirky" would be generous, it doesn't recover nicely whenever it runs into trouble, and with the large size of the libraries and the slow download speeds for some people it's just bound to run into trouble. And these people rightfully question "Why is it like this?" 2) SVN is old, everything uses git these days it's the hip and trendy new kid on the block. they never have these kinds of issues with git! why is blender being so silly, just use git! on the other hand, no-one is using pure git to manage a large collection of binaries since it is just not designed for this job, in much the same way the hand basket at your local hardware store is not designed to pick up that 25kg bag of cement. git-lfs is one of the proposed solutions, but also not free of problems [1] (written by the maintainer of an different version control system, be aware of "some" bias there) Yet another alternative is to go, 3rd party dependencies are no concern of us, developers can go obtain/build these on their own. This is the stance taken by the majority of opensource projects. And I'll admit, as one of the people responsible for the contents of this repository I can't help feeling some envy there, maintaining the libs and guaranteeing a smooth experience for developers is *VERY* time consuming. However seeing new people join the blender project going "building blender was much easier than I expected, I finished my small first patch fixing something that had been bothering me in under a day" negates those feelings and makes me realize as a project the blender project is better for everyone by having these libs available. SVN is what we have and it's mostly working for us there's alternatives but there's a lot more nuance to it than "just use X I never have problems with X" [1] https://gregoryszorc.com/blog/2021/05/12/why-you-shouldn%27t-use-git-lfs/ On 2022-06-18 11:24 a.m., Zack Brown wrote: > Thanks, I appreciate the explanation. It still seems weird. I'm sure the > original conversation that led to this particular svn tree must have involved > some amount of controversy. > > But at this point in the project's history there's definitely something to be > said for "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Especially with so many amazing > blender features in rapid development. > > Be well, > Zack > > > On Sat, Jun 18, 2022 at 6:45 PM Ray Molenkamp <r...@lazydodo.com> wrote: > > libraries change over time, sometimes they have large api changes > where we have to do reintegration work into blender. > > Which then leads to, if we have a single folder with libs, what > do the 2 concurrent LTS releases use? that same lib folder? they > need major rework to use them, we can't land rework in an lts release > brand new bugs will likely come with it. option b: well we'll give > every release their own folder on that shared drive so they won't have > issues when the libs change. > > wait a minute... we've just reinvented version control :) > > --Ray > > On 2022-06-18 1:04 a.m., Zack Brown wrote: >> Hi everyone, >> >> It's fascinating to see this discussion. It never occurred to me that >> anyone might continue to prefer svn once git came into existence, and yet >> here is a sample case, right under my nose! I guess svn is still relevant >> even after all these years! >> >> But actually I'd be curious to know why revision control is used at all >> in this particular case. We're talking about precompiled binaries, right? >> That's sort of the poster child for situations where revision control is >> *not* what one wants, exactly for the reason why git would be a bad choice. >> >> Please, could someone explain why the blender project doesn't simply use >> a dev-accessible shared folder somewhere? I love revision control, but it's >> only useful if it's useful. >> >> Be well, >> Zack > > _______________________________________________ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org List details, subscription details or unsubscribe: https://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers