I use Git, but I'm not attached to it. I run my own publicly-accessible remote (using Gitea), but that would be completely replaceable with Fossil (which I am very impressed by).
What's not so easy to replace is the Git integration in my editor (Visual Studio Code) which allows me to easily perform basic operation like commit, push, pull, and rebase. Even just to the ability to review diffs and perform checkins in my editor would be enough, but I doubt it will happen anytime soon, if ever, and I don't have the expertise required to hack it on myself. Until the landscape changes (or someone can suggest suitable Windows software), I will continue to admire Fossil from afar. On December 26, 2017 10:08:08 AM EST, Damien Sykes <dam...@dcpendleton.plus.com> wrote: >Hi, >This is a question I have asked myself many times (I.E. Git projects >moving >to Fossil). >GitHub is well known and boasts over 74 million repositories, yet >Fossil, >which both hosts and utilises one of the most well-known database >systems in >the world, I doubt can count a thousand. Even the ChiselApp hosting >platform >hosts a mere 360 public repositories, Hydra hosts 11, WanderingHorse >hosts >23, outside of which lie Fossil itself, the Fossil book, SQLite and >friends >(5 publicly accessible repositories in all), and TCL and friends (7 >repositories), making a total of 408. Add SQLite private repositories, >and >private repositories that I host, have access to or otherwise generally >know >exist, and I come up with an estimate of roughly 470 repositories. Of >course >this is not an accurate statistic since it may exclude more private >repositories, and definitely excludes any local repositories (I for one >have >about a dozen Git repositories as Fossil repositories). >While I am making every attempt to try to persuade friends towards >Fossil, >they are also choosing Git. Looks to me like the only people who seem >to use >Fossil are those who are most associated with it, which is a real >shame. >The only advantage I can see with GitHub is that it's the source code >Twitter equivalent. Everybody's repository is in one place. As long as >you >know the username and repository name you know the full repository URL, >and >you don't have to worry about server administration. With Fossil, if I >wanted to make it feel like github, I.E. address.tld/user/repo, I would >have >to script it and serve it via a webserver rather than Fossil's own >server, >two processes which I am not at all skilled enough, at least at the >moment, >to undertake. To give you an example, I am currently having to run two >systems, one for my website and one for Fossil, so that they can both >work >on port 80, because I know nothing about networking in order to >understand >IP addresses, ports and connections in the way I'd need to get a server >and >Fossil to run on port 80 on the same machine, nor do I know enough >about >webservers to be able to get it to work with CGI. In fact I know so >little >that I follow installation guides to the letter and have to do a >complete >fresh server reset and reinstall from scratch when something goes wrong > >because I haven't a clue how to fix it. If I'm to be totally honest at >the >moment I'm even beginning to doubt my own software development skills. >If there were a Fossil-based github-like system, and both Fossil and >the >hosting system were well promoted, Fossil may or may not become the >norm. >Having said that, the advantage of Fossil over Git is that, thanks to >the >webserver, you can easily look at your changes in a laid-out website, >even >on your own machine. I've many a time found myself importing Git >repositories into Fossil just to look at the timeline. Plus, you don't >have >to worry about complicated concepts like pull requests, synchronising >forks >and submodules etc. Though it doesn't matter what VCS I use I always >seem to >come across, and struggle with, the concept of branching and merging! >In any case, my incompetencies aside. People seem to be slowly moving >away >from SourceForge in favour of GitHub. If only we could make the same >revolution with Fossil! Ironically when I first came across a site >called >FossHub I actually thought that was an attempt to make a Fossil-based >GitHub. Seems that isn't the case after all. >Cheers. >Damien. >-----Original Message----- >From: Richard Hipp >Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2017 1:10 PM >To: SQLite mailing list >Cc: shekharreddy.k...@gmail.com >Subject: Re: [sqlite] Move to Github!!? > >On 12/25/17, Shekhar Reddy <shekharreddy.k...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Is there any particular reason that the source is not moved to >GitHub? I >> think that would reach more number of people there. >> > >There is a mirror of the SQLite repository on GitHub at >https://github.com/mackyle/sqlite (maintained by GitHub user "mackyle" >whom I do not know, but whose efforts I do appreciate). > >SQLite uses a different version control system called Fossil. See >https://www.fossil-scm.org/ for more information about Fossil. Fossil >is superior to Git+GitHub in many respects. You can easily see this >by doing a side-by-side comparison of the SQLite Fossil repository >against the GitHub mirror. > >For example, here is the GitHub view of the "dbpage" branch of SQLite: > > https://github.com/mackyle/sqlite/commits/dbpage > >Compare the above against the equivalent Fossil view: > > https://www.sqlite.org/src/timeline?p=dfdebd12bfc80b91 > >The Fossil view clearly shows that the head of "dbpage" is the merger >of two other branches, and Fossil shows clearly where the branch >diverged from trunk. That information is very difficult to discern >from the GitHub view. > >Fossil also has the ability to show the complete context of an >individual branch. For the "dbpage" branch, the context is shown >here: > > https://www.sqlite.org/src/timeline?r=dbpage > >Note in particular that Fossil clearly shows that the "dbpage" branch >was ultimately merged back into trunk. GitHub does not provide that >information, as far as I can tell. > >The basic problem with Git (apart from its notoriously convoluted user >interface) is that it is based on a (bespoke) key/value database - the >"packfile". Fossil, on the other hand, is based on the most widely >used relational database in the world. This make information much >easier to extract from Fossil than from Git. For example, given a >commit in Git (perhaps one reported by a customer or one found via >bisect) there is no easy way in Git to find out what comes next - what >commits were entered using your commit as a baseline. Git shows >ancestors, but not descendants. Fossil, on the other hand, easily >shows both descendants and ancestors of a check-in. You see this in >the "Context" section of any Fossil commit page, such as >https://www.sqlite.org/src/info/dfdebd12bfc80b91 > >The fact that Git/GitHub does not show the descendants of a commit is >a show-stopper for me. > >Finally, the use of GitHub would create a reliance on an outside >company over which we have no influence. The people who run GitHub >today seem like great folks. But the company might be sold or fall >under new management tomorrow, and the friendly and open policies that >govern GitHub today might change in an instant. Fossil, on the other >hand, is very simple to self-host on a $5/month VPS. (SQLite uses >https://www.linode.com/ for its main servers and >https://www.digitalocean.com for the https://www3.sqlite.org/ backup. >There are lots of others.) > >So, given that Fossil is freer than Git (BSD vs. GPL), that Fossil >embodies all of the functionality of both Git and GitHub, that Fossil >is more capable than Git/GitHub, that Fossil has a friendly user >interface than Git, and that Fossil is very easy to self-host and thus >frees you of any dependencies on third-party companies, the question >becomes: > >Why aren't you moving all of your GitHub projects over to Fossil! > >-- >D. Richard Hipp >d...@sqlite.org >_______________________________________________ >sqlite-users mailing list >sqlite-users@mailinglists.sqlite.org >http://mailinglists.sqlite.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sqlite-users > >_______________________________________________ >sqlite-users mailing list >sqlite-users@mailinglists.sqlite.org >http://mailinglists.sqlite.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sqlite-users -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. _______________________________________________ sqlite-users mailing list sqlite-users@mailinglists.sqlite.org http://mailinglists.sqlite.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sqlite-users
