Re: CVS, Linus, and us

Warner Losh (imp@village.org)
Wed, 21 Feb 1996 08:39:09 -0700


: Any CVS guru's out there want to set up a test-system like this that could
: be demo'ed to Linus? Reading the CVS FAQ implies that restricted access to
: the tree might not be altogether trivial to set up. Perhaps 2.1
: development could be done on CVS if a convincing enough demo can be given

I could set it up, but I don't think that would be wise. Since Linus
is in control of the Linux Kernel, it is up to him to use the tools
that would make it easy for him to use. I think someone in the
location where Linus lives would be best for this, however, so that
Linus can ask him/her over a beer "Well, I was using CVS today and..."
Some version control should likely be used, but I'm not going to stand
up and say "Linus, use XXX." It is up to Linus at this point.

I think that if the goal is to show Linus that CVS is a good thing, it
might be better to point to things like, say, Linux/SPARC and other
parts of Linux that use it. Have those folks rub elbows with Linus at
conferences and what not. Over time Linus can judge for himself if
these folks are saving time or wasting it. I don't think a single
DEMO system would convince me if I were in this spot.

Also, read only CVS access is easy to setup. However, it is called
sup :-). Read only anonymous CVS is hard to setup and takes lots of
babysitting. As does a SUP server. They also take lots of bandwidth.
The FreeBSD folks were on a T3 and that wasn't enough (OK, it was
multiplex with ftp.cdrom.com). If something like this is made
available, I think that you'd need to find a couple of T3 connected
sites...

Warner