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1.1       dholland    1: ## NetBSD migration path to Mercurial
                      2: 
                      3: This page describes what's involved in migrating NetBSD from CVS to
                      4: Mercurial.
                      5: 
                      6: ### What Mercurial is
                      7: 
                      8: [[Mercurial|http://mercurial.selenic.com]] is an open-source version
                      9: control system.
                     10: It is a distributed version control system based on the commit
                     11: hashcode model shared with git and other DVCSes.
                     12: It is fast and powerful and has long emphasized a certain polish of
                     13: production.
                     14: 
                     15: ### Why Mercurial
                     16: 
                     17: Mercurial is a modern VCS; it is maintained; it is capable of
                     18: handling the NetBSD repositories; and it is cleanly designed, simple,
                     19: and easy to use.
                     20: The first three of these properties are necessary requirements for
                     21: NetBSD to migrate (I don't think any of them are particularly
                     22: controversial); the last sets it apart from git, which is the other
                     23: immediately available alternative.
                     24: (The third option, writing our own, is not currently realistic.)
                     25: 
                     26: One could write a lot of gung-ho IT IS REALLY GR8!!!11!! boosterism
                     27: here too, of course, but I'll leave that for someone else.
                     28: 
                     29: ### Migration
                     30: 
                     31: There are two categories of issues related to migrating a project the
                     32: size of NetBSD: first, what the project and the world around the
                     33: project will look like after the migration is done, and second, what
                     34: things need to be done to get there.
                     35: The purpose of this page is to tackle the first: what things in the
                     36: project will be different and what they'll be like.
                     37: This includes not just user-facing things like commit procedures but
                     38: also backend considerations and administration.
                     39: 
                     40: There's a [[second page|hgtodo.mdwn]] with a list of work that needs
                     41: to be done.
                     42: 
                     43: ### Issues
                     44: 
                     45: Technical concerns (demands on the system's operational model)
1.2     ! dholland   46: 
1.1       dholland   47: * atomic commits / changesets
                     48: * rename support
                     49: * authenticating commits
                     50: * numbered versions
                     51: * branch handling
                     52: * tag handling
                     53: * partial checkouts
                     54: **   partial trees
                     55: **   partial history
                     56: * blacklist extension (which is a legal requirement)
                     57: * being able to migrate away in the future
                     58: * ...
                     59: 
                     60: Conversion of CVS repository phenomena
                     61: * vendor branches
                     62: * conversion of repo-copies and similar CVS horrors
                     63: * adding rename metadata to already-done moves
                     64: * pkgsrc not-really-vendor imports
                     65: * developer usernames vs. email addresses in log messages and commit metadata
                     66: * non-ascii text in log messages
                     67: * version references in log messages
                     68: * retaining CVS file version numbers as metadata
                     69: * restoring the pre-settlement history and/or including the CSRG history
                     70: 
                     71: Implementation concerns (demands on the system as it exists)
                     72: * general performance
                     73: * importing into base, or not
                     74: * storage requirements vs. small systems
                     75: * memory requirements vs. small systems
                     76: * possible workarounds for small systems
                     77: * ...
                     78: 
                     79: Community deployment issues
                     80: * what becomes of anoncvs
                     81: * making use of version numbers in mailing lists / security advisories
                     82: * patches/contributions/commits from non-developers
                     83: * collaborating with non-developers
                     84:   
                     85: Developer deployment issues
                     86: * commit procedures
                     87: * development branch procedures
                     88: * vendor branch procedures
                     89: * private branch procedures
                     90: * collaboration without pushing to the master repositories
                     91: * rebasing vs. merging
                     92: * how to refer to other commits in log messages
                     93: 
                     94: Many of these issues are already documented in [[the existing
                     95: workflows writeup|hgnb.mdwn]].
                     96: 
                     97: Releng deployment issues
                     98: * changes to the way pullups are filed
                     99: * release commit procedures
                    100: * release branch procedures
                    101: * dealing with accidental commits to release branches
                    102: * preventing accidental merges into release branches
                    103: * extracting formal release tarballs
                    104: * shipping source tarballs
                    105: * ...
                    106: 
                    107: Backend/admins deployment issues
                    108: * log_accum / source-changes mails
                    109: * access control for whole trees
                    110: * access control for subsections of trees
                    111: * backups
                    112: * pushing to anoncvs
                    113: * ...
                    114: 
                    115: cvs assumptions / scripted usage in the tree
                    116: * pkgsrc: changes-entry and commit-changes-entry
                    117: * pkgsrc: guide regen
                    118: * ...
                    119: 
                    120: Other questions
                    121: * running live in parallel with CVS during a transition period
                    122: * gatewaying to other VCS frontends
                    123: 
                    124: 
                    125: 
                    126: