From: nel...@crynwr.com
Subject: CVS, Linus, and us
Date: 1996/02/16
Message-ID: <19960216222928.29251.qmail@ns.crynwr.com>#1/1
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Linus has already expressed a grave reluctance to use CVS for his
source tree, both on this list, and in my hearing. But there's
already multiple people maintaining CVS copies of the kernel source.
Why couldn't one of these people make his/her (well, okay, so it's
always a guy, but I can't write just ``his'' anymore, these days) CVS
tree available over the net?
The netbsd people have a CVS tree for the source of all system files.
I don't know why we can't do the same thing.
-russ <nel...@crynwr.com> http://www.crynwr.com/~nelson
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From: Warner Losh <i...@village.org>
Subject: Re: CVS, Linus, and us
Date: 1996/02/17
Message-ID: <199602172245.PAA15420@rover.village.org>#1/1
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: The netbsd people have a CVS tree for the source of all system files.
: I don't know why we can't do the same thing.
The FreeBSD people, the OpenBSD people, the MACH people, the XFree86
people, etc, etc, etc, etc
What the *BSD people have is an entire system under CVS. The kernel
files, as well as the utilities such as sendmail, etc.
If you make a CVS tree available over the net, you need a T1 or better
these days...
Warner
From: tfr...@umr.edu (Todd Fries)
Subject: Re: CVS, Linus, and us
Date: 1996/02/17
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> Why couldn't one of these people make his/her ... CVS
> tree available over the net?
'Twould be wonderful. Unfortunately, currently, cvs in its default form
requires remote shelling capabilities into the computer. One would have to
be very confortable with the security risks in 'just making cvs available'
over the net.
> The netbsd people have a CVS tree for the source of all system files.
> I don't know why we can't do the same thing.
Someone please correct me if I don't have my facts straight, but as I understand
it, it is OpenBSD, not NetBSD that has the 'anoncvs' tree. Just browse to
http://www.openbsd.org/ and follow the 'how we help developers and users' and
read more details, but basically, they have a neat 'secure' environment setup
in which one CAN retrieve files in a read-only fashon. I personally know one
of the site maintaiers who worked for several days setting up anoncvs and he
was telling me that it wasn't a breeze. Something along the lines of OpenBSD's
'edge' on other free OS's, from what I gather.
Then, there is NetBSD's 'supkit' which, as I understand it, allows one to type
'sup' on the client computer, and then through supserver, running on the server
machine, determines which files are not uptodate, and then retrieves them,
thus bringing one's source uptodate.
Again, what I think I know. Please someone correct me if I am wrong.
--
Todd Fries...tfr...@umr.edu
http://www.cs.umr.edu/~tfries
From: Warner Losh <i...@village.org>
Subject: Re: CVS, Linus, and us
Date: 1996/02/18
Message-ID: <199602181642.JAA17293@rover.village.org>#1/1
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: 'Twould be wonderful. Unfortunately, currently, cvs in its default form
: requires remote shelling capabilities into the computer. One would have to
: be very confortable with the security risks in 'just making cvs available'
: over the net.
There are ways around this. Kerberos, ssh and chroot are your friends
:-)
: Someone please correct me if I don't have my facts straight, but as
: I understand it, it is OpenBSD, not NetBSD that has the 'anoncvs'
: tree.
OpenBSD has the anoncvs tree. FreeBSD allows you to sup copies of the
CVS tree. NetBSD has a CVS tree for developers. All three you need
special permissions to actually check code into the tree. All three
have people with commit privs that will general commit good patches
promptly.
Right now I don't see what having an unofficial CVS tree available
over the net would buy us (the whole Linux community). I do see
utility in this for, say, the MIPS or Sparc or Alpha or PPC or
whatever ports that are going on. However, it up to those port
coordinators to actually do this or not do this.
The real win in *BSD, imho, is that the whole core system is in the
CVS tree: compilers, kernel, libc, utilities, etc. It makes it easier
for them to maintain two branches of the OS (in FreeBSD's case) for
long periods of time of "active" development in both.
Anyway, source code control is a religious issue. I'm reporting
something that works well for others. I don't know if the dynamics of
this situation would warrant a similar direction or not.
Warner
From: "Ulrich Windl" <Ulrich.Wi...@rz.uni-regensburg.de>
Subject: Re: CVS, Linus, and us
Date: 1996/02/19
Message-ID: <97292BC6DC2@rkdvmks1.ngate.uni-regensburg.de>#1/1
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On 17 Feb 96 at 14:44, Todd Fries wrote:
> > Why couldn't one of these people make his/her ... CVS
> > tree available over the net?
>
> 'Twould be wonderful. Unfortunately, currently, cvs in its default form
> requires remote shelling capabilities into the computer. One would have to
> be very confortable with the security risks in 'just making cvs available'
> over the net.
>
> > The netbsd people have a CVS tree for the source of all system files.
> > I don't know why we can't do the same thing.
>
> Someone please correct me if I don't have my facts straight, but as I understand
> it, it is OpenBSD, not NetBSD that has the 'anoncvs' tree. Just browse to
> http://www.openbsd.org/ and follow the 'how we help developers and users' and
> read more details, but basically, they have a neat 'secure' environment setup
> in which one CAN retrieve files in a read-only fashon. I personally know one
> of the site maintaiers who worked for several days setting up anoncvs and he
> was telling me that it wasn't a breeze. Something along the lines of OpenBSD's
> 'edge' on other free OS's, from what I gather.
>
Basically mounting the holy CVS tree over NFS read-only should solve
all the write problems. I think BSD people are just getting a current
"export" instead of a "real checkout". Having an "export" is enough
to have the latest sources, but you need to import them before you
can change them via CVS.
------------
Ulrich Windl Klinikum der Universitaet Regensburg
Rechenzentrum DV-med Franz-Josef-Strauss-Allee 11
Tel: +49 941 944-5879 D-93053 Regensburg
FAX: +49 941 944-5882
The French government had announced that one, or maybe two, nuclear
tests are necessary before further nuclear explosions can be simulated
on computers. I don't know which is the worst: French computers, French
mathematicans, or French politicians.
From: Alan Cox <a...@cymru.net>
Subject: Re: CVS, Linus, and us
Date: 1996/02/19
Message-ID: <199602191756.RAA14050@snowcrash.cymru.net>#1/1
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> Basically mounting the holy CVS tree over NFS read-only should solve
> all the write problems. I think BSD people are just getting a current
And start all sorts of other fun with NFS performance, better to make
the tree read-only ftpable if you want to do that.
Alan
From: Alan Cox <a...@cymru.net>
Subject: Re: CVS, Linus, and us
Date: 1996/02/19
Message-ID: <199602191050.KAA00346@snowcrash.cymru.net>#1/1
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> 'Twould be wonderful. Unfortunately, currently, cvs in its default form
> requires remote shelling capabilities into the computer. One would have to
> be very confortable with the security risks in 'just making cvs available'
> over the net.
Switch it to use ssh, end of problem.
Alan
From: Warner Losh <i...@village.org>
Subject: Re: CVS, Linus, and us
Date: 1996/02/19
Message-ID: <199602192223.PAA21089@rover.village.org>#1/1
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: Basically mounting the holy CVS tree over NFS read-only should solve
: all the write problems. I think BSD people are just getting a current
: "export" instead of a "real checkout". Having an "export" is enough
: to have the latest sources, but you need to import them before you
: can change them via CVS.
No. The NetBSD people maybe, but the FreeBSD people give you the
entire tree, comments and all, to grab by sup. OpenBSD gives you a
machine that you can access via anonymous CVS.
To the person who suggested importing, over and over, the sources and
you'd have the tree: That is false. You would have snapshots of a
tree, without any of the comentary that usually goes with tree. If
someone changes
outp(0x56, 0x60);
to
outp(0x76, 0x60);
all you know is that the change has happened. With a good source code
control system, you would know why. That is what makes the CVS trees
from FreeBSD, at least, so valuable. People tend to document why they
made the changes, so you'd know that the MUMBLEFOO bit was added to
the initialization sequence to help BRAIN-DEAD-MONKEY keyboards
operate properly....
Warner
From: Craig Schlenter <s...@kidd.co.za>
Subject: Re: CVS, Linus, and us
Date: 1996/02/21
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.960221082615.30079C-100000@igw01.kidd.co.za>#1/1
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On Mon, 19 Feb 1996, Warner Losh wrote:
[stuff deleted]
> all you know is that the change has happened. With a good source code
> control system, you would know why. That is what makes the CVS trees
> from FreeBSD, at least, so valuable. People tend to document why they
> made the changes, so you'd know that the MUMBLEFOO bit was added to
> the initialization sequence to help BRAIN-DEAD-MONKEY keyboards
> operate properly....
[I'm joining this thread a little late. Forgive me if I repeat stuff
which has possibly been said before].
This certainly is a *very* good justification for using CVS. I am not a
CVS user myself (I plan on changing to CVS from RCS real soon now), but I
suspect that it would be possible to set up a 'read-only' tree accessible
by Joe Average but allow write access for important developers. If I
remember correctly, Linus' original objection was that he didn't want just
anyone hacking away at the tree ...
Linus could thus have the main branch and merge in code from the other
trusted developer branches (Alan etc.) as he saw fit. Official releases
would be done from the main branch. Joe Average would get to access any
part of the tree he wanted in read-only mode and of course be able to
access the log information. The current sporadic log information tacked
into files could be dispensed with. Patches from Joe Average could be
sent to the maintainer of whatever branch ...
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
!!
--Craig
From: Warner Losh <i...@village.org>
Subject: Re: CVS, Linus, and us
Date: 1996/02/21
Message-ID: <199602211539.IAA01587@rover.village.org>#1/1
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: 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
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