[Biopython-dev] Moving from CVS to git

[Bartek Wilczynski]

On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Peter<biopython at maubp.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi all,
>

> Given we don't really seem to have the expertise "in house"
> to run an OBF git server ourselves right now, option (a) is
> simplest, and as I recall those of us at BOSC where OK
> with this plan.
>
> Assuming we go down this route (CVS to github), everyone
> with an existing CVS account should setup a github account
> if they want to continue to have commit access (e.g. Frank,
> Iddo). I would suggest that initially you get used to working
> with git and github BEFORE trying anything directly on what
> would be the "official" repository. It took me a while and I'm
> still learning ;)
>
> Is this agreeable? Are there any other suggestions?
>
> [Once this is settled, we can talk about things like merge
> requests and if they should be accompanied by a Bugzilla
> ticket or not.]
>

Hi All,

I absolutely agree here with Peter, i.e. I would suggest we move now from
CVS to a git branch hosted on github.

Since I'm more involved in the technical setup we currently have, I'd also add
a few more technical arguments for this move:

- While current setup is working, it is suboptimal because there is an extra
  conversion step both for accepting changes done by people in git (git to CVS)
  and propagating releases (CVS to github).
- Once we move to git as our version control system, we need to have a
"master" branch
  which will be easily available for viewing and branching: we can't
do it now on open-bio
  servers (it requires git installation and some server-side scripts
to have a browseable
  repository), also "moving" to github is easier because it actually
requires no physical action,
  we just need to stop updating CVS.
- If anyone have fears of depending on github, I think it's much less
of a problem than with CVS,
  moving our "master" branch from github to somewhere else is very
easy and does not require
  any action on the side of github, we just post the branch somewhere,
and start pushing there
  (you can find a list of possible hosting solutions here:
http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitHosting)
- Regarding the backups of the github branch: I'm already doing this.
If you have a shell account
  on dev.open-bio.org, you can get the current  git branch of
biopython from /home/bartek/git_branch
  (location subject to change), so this would require no additional
work, although it would be optimal,
  to actually install git on open-bio server, so that the updating
script can be run from there. If we had that,
  we could actually hook it up directly to github, so that instead of
running once in an hour, it would be run
  after each push to the branch (http://github.com/guides/post-receive-hooks)


To summarize, I'm ready to switch off the part of my script which is
updating the gihub branch from CVS.
For now, I would leave the part that is making backups of github
branch on open-bio server (via rsync).
Once we have git installed on dev.open-bio, I can hook it up to
notifications from github.

cheers
  Bartek