[webkit-dev] Moving to Git?

[Gustavo Noronha Silva]

On Fri, 2012-03-09 at 13:43 -0800, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> > - Simplified workflow, we don't need to mess with git-svn.
> > - Companies who fork (we all do) can simplify their workflow a bit
> > regarding branches.
> 
> It sounds like avoiding use of git-svn is the big benefit to git users
> and perhaps the reason this topic periodically comes up. Can anyone
> spell out in more detail the benefits of using straight git instead of
> git-svn?

I am a git user, I use git-svn for all my commits and I tend to use git
for every project I create myself outside of WebKit. I see lots of
benefits to using git over svn. However, for a project like WebKit I
think there's really no reason to use git other than people feeling good
about removing git-svn from their systems.

I tend to think there is little or no benefit to switching to git while
keeping all of the project workflow in place. The fact that we would
want to keep a simple history with no merges in it pretty much defeat
any benefit that could be had. I think using git only makes sense if we
adopt git workflows, which would mean people would post git branches
for review instead of patches, and those branches would then get merged.

The one point I think makes a lot of sense to investigate is tools.
People who are maintaining the awesome tools we use today have been
doing a great job of making them work for both git and svn users, but
it's probably a big burden for them. So, if people declare that some
tools will only work with git work directories, I'd be fine with it,
would anyone oppose? We can keep using svn as the central server, but
people wanting to use those tools would have to use git-svn.

Tbh, I am much more interested in doing away with ChangeLogs than in
feeling good about using git push instead of git svn dcommit. If we
could find a way around ChangeLogs while keeping svn, then I would be an
even happier panda than I am today =).

Cheers,

-- 
Gustavo Noronha Silva <gns at gnome.org>
GNOME Project