[GUSDEV] GUS CVS Repository Proposal

[Michael S. <msa...@pc...>]

All,

I'd like to propose to the GUS community the move from a CVS repository
hosted by Sanger to a Subversion repository hosted here at CBIL.  This
proposal follows several internal discussions here at CBIL about the best
way for the community to collectively work together on GUS, some
frustrations about the functionality provided by CVS, and complete technical
proof-of-concept testing.

First, a word about Subversion.  Subversion is an open source "version
control system that is a compelling replacement for CVS".  As a replacement,
subversion provides an almost identical user experience to CVS (except where
there was compelling reason to do otherwise).  For example, "cvs update" is
replaced by "svn update"; "cvs commit" replaced by "svn commit", and so on.

Subversion provides a lot of nice new functionality, such as support for
moving files and directories within a repository (and keeping history
details intact throughout the move), improved performance (costs are
generally in proportion to change size, not the data size), additional
offline actions, atomic commits, and proper versioning of directories,
renames, and file meta-data.

Subversion will also permit us to allow per-directory permissions,
increasing access and (hopefully) participation within the GUS project.

Before committing to making the change (which would most likely occur as
part of the 3.5 release process), we want to make sure that there are no
objections from the community, and that any concerns or questions are fully
addressed.

To be clear, the only change that developers will need to make is accessing
the repository via svn, instead of cvs.  This will require using a svn
client (although accessing the repository via the web will still be
supported for read-only access).  svn is supported on all modern operating
systems, and several also support graphical clients for those that do not
care for the command line.

More information is available at: http://subversion.tigris.org/

Thanks,

Mike