Re: [Vxl-maintainers] Should VXL move to git?

[Matt L. <mat...@ki...>]

On Mon, 2012-02-20 at 18:27 +0100, Mathieu Malaterre wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 6:07 PM, Matt Leotta <mat...@ki...> wrote:
> > VXL users and developers,
> ...
> > Proposed move of VXL from svn to git
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > I would like to propose moving VXL from subversion to git for version
> > control.  A subset of VXL developers (including all of us at Kitware)
> > already develop VXL using git and push changes to sourceforge using
> > git-svn.  Git is a distributed version control system and marks a
> > substantial change in mindset from subversion (and CVS before it).
> >
> > If accepted, I (or someone at Kitware) will migrate the current svn
> > repository to git in a way the preserves all the history, tags, etc.
> > The repository will continue to be hosted at sourceforge.  We will also
> > update the website and assist others in updating dashboard builds.
> > Kitware's build and test tools (CMake, CDash, etc.) work well with git
> > and in fact these tools are all developed in git repositories
> > themselves.
> >
> > While there are many advantages to using git over svn, the primary
> > reason for suggesting this change now is to make stable release
> > management easier.
> 
> Does this means you are volonteering to make the next VXL release ?

Well, I don't know about the next release, we are not using git yet :)  

More generally, though I think the answer here is yes.  However, we need
to get to a point where each developer has more responsibilities in
forming to the release.  For example, each developer needs to decide
when a feature (or bug fix) they are developing is done and whether it
should go into the next stable release or whether it is still a work in
progress.  For example, each developer would merge their git topic
branches into a release candidate branch if they are ready for release.

I hope we can get to the point where a release candidate branch is
automatically tested on the dashboards while other branches are tested
that contain ongoing development.  At that point, making a new stable
release is much more mechanical.  If we get to that point I can
volunteer to make the stable releases.  

--Matt