CTM vs subversion, was: http://mailman.berklix.org/mailman/listinfo now has all delta lists

[Montgomery-Smith, Stephen]

On 9/14/19 4:41 PM, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
> "Montgomery-Smith, Stephen" wrote:
>> On 9/12/19 9:47 PM, Philip Paeps wrote:
>>
>>> I should point out that the FreeBSD Project has moved to Subversion more than eleven years ago and is actively looking into moving to Git.  There is a limit to how much time any of us are willing to put into keeping a hack around two revision control systems ago alive.
>>
>> I didn't realize it was eleven years that FreeBSD moved to subversion.
>> It was at this point that I personally moved completely away from CTM.
>> I maintain CTM as a service to you guys.
>>
>> What are the barriers that stop you moving to subversion?
>>
>> I really like subversion, because it gives me the version control that
>> CVS couldn't do easily.  The version control across many different
>> computers is what made me like CTM, but when they switched from CVS to
>> subversion, I found that subversion gives me everything I wanted, plus a
>> lot more.
> 
> 
> Although CTM's etymology from first authour was "Cvs Tree Mirror"
> that now misleads, per my http://www.berklix.org/ctm/#what
> "Code Through Mail" might best summarise it at 2018-12
> 
> CTM is now a means of delivering tree updates (Similar result to
> to rdist6 & rsync & mirror, though those rely on different
> functionality:  end to end live pull using ports some firewalls etc
> may block, whereas CTM just pushes with SMTP, unlikely blocked)
> 
> Most trees we deliver with CTM are src-* releases, + 1 ports, + 1 SVN,
> but surely CTM could just as readily deliver a GIT tree as an SVN, 
> as its already done for CVS too ?
> 
> Admittedly if freebsd moves to GIT, we'd need to tweak the server
> scripts to do GIT export instead of svn export.
> 
> My http://www.berklix.org/ctm/#why "Why Use CTM for Delivery Instead
> of SVN ?" may also misleading, accidentaly reinforcing the wrong
> impression that CTM is just an alterantive to SVN. Its not.  I'll fix it.

After reading the list http://www.berklix.org/ctm/#why, there isn't
anything there I find very compelling.  As best I can tell from your
list, CTM has two advantages over SVN
1.  If you are in an airport or other remote place, and you need to
update your FreeBSD machine, and it just happens that you have access to
email but not other services like https.
2.  You use FreeBSD behind a very restrictive corporate firewall.

My answer to reason (1) would be - why is it so important to update your
FreeBSD in such situations?  Can't you wait?  And my answer to (2) is,
does there really exist a corporate environment where you need to use
FreeBSD, but you don't have https access?

And supposing you can find unlikely situations where there are positive
answers to any of these questions, you have to weigh that against all
the man hours required to maintain CTM.

Right now, maintaining CTM is relatively easy for me to do.  But when
FreeBSD changes from SVN to GIT, someone will have to do a major
persuasion job to get me to do the work.  And as it stands right now, I
am not persuaded.

If anyone else wants to chime in, please do so?  Just how many people
still use CTM?

Stephen