An interesting if slightly sad read. I want to add my support and praise
as a long-time user of Subversion.
I still come across many users out there. Subversion is thriving in one
particular business I work with. The youngsters have brought some Git in
with them but it seems to be led by fashion than anything else.
Subversion remains.
I choose Subversion over all other options for my own personal projects.
I like the simplicity and clarity.
I was recently considering some git-svn monster to allow local branching
on a big Subversion-hosted project but then I discovered the svn
shelving experiments. The checkpointing addition changes everything. I
cannot overstate that. I feel it's important to fully release
shelving/checkpointing and publicise the shift that it brings to working
with Subversion.
Of course, none of this magically brings new developers to the project
but perhaps it will provide motivation.
S.
On 2019/06/14 13:26:41, Julian Foad <j...@apache.org> wrote:
> The Subversion community has gradually become much less active. We
have >
> reached the point where we are struggling to even put out a release.>
>
> Johan said I may quote his thoughts, so I will:>
> > Indeed, I was just wondering about the same thing, before I read
your>
> > response, Julian. It's quite clear that things are getting more and>
> > more quiet . I feel the project is slowly dying ...>
> > >
> > Sometimes I try to give an issue a little push by summarizing it on>
> > the dev list, or by giving some ideas, but for me that's usually
about>
> > all I can do (limited time, limited knowledge, ...). I'm not the
only>
> > one of course. Sometimes, others give a little push as well, and
with>
> > enough hands some things still get done. But lately, those little>
> > pushes seem to become more and more rare.>
> > >
> > Also: if Julian's funding stops, will we get another release out?>
> > Theoretically we can, of course, but will we?>
> > >
> > I'm not blaming anyone of course. We're all volunteers, time gets>
> > consumed by other things, motivations and priorities shift, ... But
it>
> > makes me a little sad .>
> > >
> > Can we do something about it? Or is this just the way it is ... a>
> > normal project lifecycle of which we've reached the end? It's
become>
> > old and un-sexy legacy software ... at least in the perception of
the>
> > masses. Can we revive it, or give it a second life?>
> > >
> > .oO("Make Subversion sexy again" :-))>
>
> Is this a Bad Thing? It is not objectively bad that the development
has >
> tailed off; that's simply what happens when a project moves on to its
>
> "mature" stage in its life cycle. But it is causing some problems in >
> adapting to the "new normal".>
>
> We have reached the point where we are struggling to even put out a >
> release because not enough developers are volunteering to do the work
>
> required. (A release, no matter how minor the changes, currently >
> requires reviewing, testing, voting, writing release notes, updating >
> other web pages, and so on. Some of the steps are mostly automated but
>
> others are not.)>
>
> So, we might want to look at changing how we do releases. I have some
>
> other thoughts too. But first, I'd like to invite others to speak up.>
>
> Anyone with constructive suggestions, please do share them. Please let
>
> us not dwell on our sadness and criticism of what went before; let us
>
> try to keep this thread focused on positive solutions for what to do
next.>
>
> - Julian>
>
>
