Can I use a Subversion server with an existing CVS client? Some kind of backwards compatibility bridge thing?
No. But, the user paradigm is exactly the same. So, I think the learning curve from CVS to Subversion is pretty small. I've been able to tell folks who only knew CVS to just type in 'svn' instead of 'cvs' or use TortoiseSVN instead of TortoiseCVS and they didn't have any problems switching over.
Not only pre-existing projects on CVS though. If a new project is split off of an existing project, it's not going to want to go and use subversion. If developers from one of the CVS projects have a new idea, they're not going to want to go and make those new ideas be in a subversion project.
How do you know? Do you have any concrete examples of this?
Please understand that the current plan within infrastructure@ is that we are to switch to Subversion with all deliberate speed. Commons is using Subversion as a test-run before we do ASF-wide deployment.
Does that mean that we're going to force it down people's throats? Not just yet. But, it does mean that CVS has a very short life expectancy within the ASF. So, expect one day that infrastructure@ will announce, "No more CVS after X/YY/ZZZZ. All ASF projects will be migrating to Subversion in X months." How long until that happens? I don't know, but I'll start placing bets down after Subversion hits 1.0 - which may be by year's end.
When the ASF as a whole announces we are switching over, I'd expect a bunch of IDEs to quickly support Subversion natively. -- justin
