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

[jhell]

On 09/20/2010 22:07, perryh at pluto.rain.com wrote:
> 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.)

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong but it is not going to matter much
to what extent a license has to do with this besides ease of mind maybe.
We would not be using the source for the VCS in a repo that holds the
source that is being distributed and none of the contained software
would be effected by a GPL'd VCS. I don't believe the GPL reaches out
that far as to where it can effect the contents of a repo even if it
would happen to be GPLv3.

Lets not bring licensing into this unless the license clearly states
that the beholder needs to be rewarded for their work by any use of so
said product.

-- 

 jhell,v