I've been sitting on this for a long time, but it's been bothering me a
bit and I need to get some others' perspectives on it.
I'm a fan of GNU Arch. Seriously. I'm not a major software author at
all, but I do have need of a revision control system, and of all that
I've used, GNU Arch is the one that I really feel fits how I work. The
fact that it is distributed, that it uses forward patching, that it has
a sane, usable interface and more make it ideally suited to my needs.
Most of all, it's a GNU project, and thus I am ensured that in using it
I retain my freedom.
The fact that GNU Arch has a smaller user base than some revision
systems has always been a bit of a downer to me, but has not deterred my
use of it in my own projects. When Bazaar forked, then rewrote, GNU
Arch, I was fairly unimpressed, because potential users of Arch were
then pulled over to Bzr. I can't fault either the Bazaar team nor the
users; this is a freedom protected by free software. I would have
preferred to see those same efforts make there way into GNU Arch (though
I have read of the reasons why they weren't), but what really galls me
is the means of developing Bazaar and the subsequent product.
Bazaar is written in Python. I've used Python, and though I personally
don't prefer it (I'm a Guile user), I see its merits and why so many
programmers are drawn to it. But Python, while ostensibly free
software, has a rather weak license and in the past its community has
shown a bit of hostility toward maintaining the Four Freedoms. This
greatly troubles me for a project that has been accepted as part of the
GNU system. I would like to have seen the deliberations over accepting
Bazaar as a GNU project and know whether this issue was brought up.
My personal wish would be to see the continued development of GNU Arch
(1.x or 2, either works) as a GNU project. I feel that these programs
are much more in line with GNU philosophy and thus a better choice for
the system. I realize that the ``best'' way to go about this is to take
an active role in the development of either piece of software, and I'd
love to, though I feel barely confident in my abilities to do the
software justice. (I'm a passable C programmer at best. Along with
being an avid Guile user, my interests lie squarely with Ada programming
and GNAT. Talk about marginalizing my own project acceptance!) I feel
that it would be worthwhile to use all GNU-supported languages for GNU
projects, and GNU Arch extended with Guile would be a worthy showpiece
for GNU's extension language as well. Maybe I'm just a fanboy, but
using GNU's tools when working on a GNU project seems _right_ in so many
ways.
This is just my perspective. I'd like to see what others have to say
for the inclusion of Bazaar as a GNU project, how that sits with the GNU
Arch community, its benefits and detriments, and what that means for the
future of Arch. I'm inclined to get involved with Arch if it's active
in any way still (but don't think I could push start it if it's
stalled), but due to my reservations with Bazaar, involvement in it,
let alone use of it, is unlikely. (It doesn't even work on my Debian
box! WTFpython!?)
Thanks for reading.
-- deadlyhead
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