Distributed Version Control for ports(7) ( was: Re: autoconf update )

[perryh at pluto.rain.com]

Janne Snabb <snabb at epipe.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 20 Sep 2010, perryh at pluto.rain.com wrote:
> > One issue with either Git or Mercurial is that they are GPL.
> > AFAIK FreeBSD prefers to avoid GPL in the base or in critical
> > widely-used infrastructure if a viable non-GPL alternative
> > exists.
>
> The project currently uses Perforce for many sub-projects,
> so using GPL licenced solution could hardly be a problem.

According to the "General Information" table here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_revision_control_software
Perforce is not GPL -- it is proprietary (but "Free ... for OSS
development").  Thus the fact that FreeBSD currently uses Perforce
tells us nothing about the acceptability of a GPL licensed solution.
(Ditto for SVN, which -- as someone already pointed out -- is not
GPL either.)

There are two distributed, BSD-licensed VCS listed on that page:
Codeville and Fossil.  Both are in ports, but Codeville has been
proposed for removal as it seems no longer to be under active
development.  That leaves Fossil as a possibly-viable BSD-licensed
alternative to Mercurial.  (Of course, there may be others that
aren't listed on that particular Wikipedia page.)