Le 28/03/2013 15:36, Kai Krueger a écrit :
In git, despite being distributed you can't really do that (unless everyone
has push rights). Although everyone can create a new git repository and
commit their patches to it and technically there is no upstream or official
repository anymore, socially that doesn't work. It just becomes even more
confusing to the user of a software if there are tens of different
repositories they could potentially pull from, each with a different set of
patches. From a usability point of view, there needs to be a single official
repository.
As a user of many different projects/packages (and a developer of
in-house projects) I fully agree about git. For instance we have some
old application based on php-gtk: the mailing list is dead (zero
traffic), what was the official site isn't updated for years.
A few persons made they own git repo instead of reviving the original
website/repo. It is now impossible to know who really continues the
development, what repo is supposed to be better than another, if there
is still a project leader, etc. In the end we have planned to rewrite
our application using anything else than php-gtk. Would a main repo
still exist and show activity (by incorporating patches from people
being today on github), we would continue to use php-gtk (mainly because
our application doesn't evolve much and fits the need it was designed
for). Now we have the feeling we rely on a dead project with no central
control and we have to abandon it because it is not possible any more to
know exactly what version is available and supported by whom.
Git seems to have been designed for a very hierarchical organization
allowing each layer of the pyramid to benefit from the work of lower
layers by forcing code validation when a pull operation is done, every
layer functioning with a 'network of trust' of the lower layer. However
as soon as there isn't a central point known to be the reference point
holding current/stable versions and no hierarchical organization, git
brings anarchy because there is no choice but to clone a repo and expose
it to the world even for the smallest patch. Copies of the same repo on
github are numerous. So numerous that every time I google something and
find only a list of gitub repo and no central site pointing to some
official repo I give up and try to find a similar project but better
managed.
SVN and git imply having a central official repo, there was no choice
with SVN but the current gitmania seems to have buried this need while
it is a crucial one.
Bernard
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