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Some Mercurial stuff.

    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)
   46: * atomic commits / changesets
   47: * rename support
   48: * authenticating commits
   49: * numbered versions
   50: * branch handling
   51: * tag handling
   52: * partial checkouts
   53: **   partial trees
   54: **   partial history
   55: * blacklist extension (which is a legal requirement)
   56: * being able to migrate away in the future
   57: * ...
   58: 
   59: Conversion of CVS repository phenomena
   60: * vendor branches
   61: * conversion of repo-copies and similar CVS horrors
   62: * adding rename metadata to already-done moves
   63: * pkgsrc not-really-vendor imports
   64: * developer usernames vs. email addresses in log messages and commit metadata
   65: * non-ascii text in log messages
   66: * version references in log messages
   67: * retaining CVS file version numbers as metadata
   68: * restoring the pre-settlement history and/or including the CSRG history
   69: 
   70: Implementation concerns (demands on the system as it exists)
   71: * general performance
   72: * importing into base, or not
   73: * storage requirements vs. small systems
   74: * memory requirements vs. small systems
   75: * possible workarounds for small systems
   76: * ...
   77: 
   78: Community deployment issues
   79: * what becomes of anoncvs
   80: * making use of version numbers in mailing lists / security advisories
   81: * patches/contributions/commits from non-developers
   82: * collaborating with non-developers
   83:   
   84: Developer deployment issues
   85: * commit procedures
   86: * development branch procedures
   87: * vendor branch procedures
   88: * private branch procedures
   89: * collaboration without pushing to the master repositories
   90: * rebasing vs. merging
   91: * how to refer to other commits in log messages
   92: 
   93: Many of these issues are already documented in [[the existing
   94: workflows writeup|hgnb.mdwn]].
   95: 
   96: Releng deployment issues
   97: * changes to the way pullups are filed
   98: * release commit procedures
   99: * release branch procedures
  100: * dealing with accidental commits to release branches
  101: * preventing accidental merges into release branches
  102: * extracting formal release tarballs
  103: * shipping source tarballs
  104: * ...
  105: 
  106: Backend/admins deployment issues
  107: * log_accum / source-changes mails
  108: * access control for whole trees
  109: * access control for subsections of trees
  110: * backups
  111: * pushing to anoncvs
  112: * ...
  113: 
  114: cvs assumptions / scripted usage in the tree
  115: * pkgsrc: changes-entry and commit-changes-entry
  116: * pkgsrc: guide regen
  117: * ...
  118: 
  119: Other questions
  120: * running live in parallel with CVS during a transition period
  121: * gatewaying to other VCS frontends
  122: 
  123: 
  124: 
  125: