Re: [Openbts-discuss] P2.8 release and USRP / UHD device support

[Thomas T. <tt...@vt...>]

On Oct 22, 2011 2:14 PM, "David Burgess" <da...@ra...> wrote:
> It's not just that I hate git.  I believe that SVN's forced centralization
is better suited to commercial development.  OpenBTS is a commercial
product.  The public release is a derivative of that commercial product.  If
the commercial developers (who still write the majority of the code, BTW)
are going to participate in the public side of the project, it is much
easier for them to do so if it is all in the same SVN repo.  So it's not
just that *I* won't use git; it's that the other developers inside Range
Networks won't use git either.  One of the reasons that KSP/Range developers
stopped contributing even the simplest bug fixes to the public release was
that is was in a different repo from their "real work".  The purpose of
moving the public release back to SVN was to break that mental barrier and
make the public release more accessible to our commercial developers, myself
included, but not myself alone.  The community wants more participation and
feature releases from the!
>  c!
> ommercial developers.  The community wants to fracture the project into
unofficial forks not controlled by a commercial interest.  The community
wants it both ways and I don't know how well that will work.

I understand that Range Networks is a commercial operation and I can respect
those requirements. I'm not suggesting any change in the repository
structure, but simply stating that Git fits my development needs much better
than svn. Git can interact transparently with svn, so I don't have any
issues with the current setup.

> To address a point in an earlier email, quoted below, I would like it very
much if every developer could use the official Range repo, CLA or not, so
that all development can be collected into a central place.  I would think
that the CLA is only needed for features that are to be rolled into the
official trunk, and even then there are exceptions.  For example, we don't
need a CLA for Thomas' Ettus device support because we will never use that
or anything like it in a commercial product.  I do not know the legal risks
associated with allowing non-CLA developers to have write access to the
repo, though.  It is likely that they will at least need to sign some kind
of certification that the code they are contributing was not copied from a
source that would be incompatible with GPL and that all appropriate
copyright notices are being preserved.  (Note to whoever is running
OpenBTS-UHD: Without that minimum level of protection, you are taking a risk
that would probably be unaccepta!
>  bl!
> e in a prudently-run business.)  "We are consulting our lawyers."  I
cringe when I see myself type that, but Harvind and I have wasted too much
precious time and money on IP lawsuits already, so we are careful to avoid
the possibility of future problems.

The thought of bringing in lawyers because of svn access makes me cringe as
well.

Alternatively, if it simplifies matters, I can submit a single large diff
now and maintain existing change history out-of-tree. Future changes can be
submitted solely through email patches.

  Thomas