Forum OpenACS Q&A: Bitkeeper experiences?

talli

Subversion does look really cool. It's also tightly intgrated with Apache. It's seems very modern and also works with the popular CVS browsers (CVSview and viewCVS).

However, Subversion isn't even in Alpha yet and seems heavily reliant on Apache 2.0. Is that an issue if I only want to use AOLserver?

talli

However, I don't think that should be a priority. This sounds a lot
like the Apache guys trying to write mod_aolserver because they really
absolutely cannot bear to run AOLserver. We shouldn't behave the same
way towards Apache: if it's there and is useful as is, why not use it?

If you're running a CVS server, you have to worry about CVS specific
issues anyways. If you have to run Apache to run Subversion, that
doesn't seem like that big a deal... thoughts? The most important
thing here is that we all know that CVS has serious
issues. Subversion is the first truly open-source alternative. If I
have to use Apache on the server end, that doesn't worry me.

To compare with your earlier questions about bugzilla and the like, my  objection to our using another bug tracking system was based on the fact that the project management realm is something we're interested in, and as Ben puts it, we should either "eat our own dogfood" or quit pretending we're going to play in this application space.

However, in this case you're talking about a space we're *not* playing  in, i.e. the nitty-gritty details of source management.  CVS or Apache+subversion, it's all the same to me as long as we choose the best alternative.  We're not canning source management dogfood so there's no reason for us to not pick the best one.

Unless the best solution requires us to buy a Win2K license, of course :)

BitKeeper is NOT GPL'd. If it was, then you wouldn't be forced to do open logging. You'd be able to use the software as you please and change it. The "Open License" version of BitKeeper trades privacy for money: get the software free (as in free beer), but you have to log openly. If you get the paid version, you don't have to do open logging.

I had not heard about subversion before. It looks like WebDAV is only necessary if you're doing a network of repositories tied together, which would be good for scalability and for very lare projects. For our use, I doubt we'd need such features.

Since folks at the open source conference recommended Perforce - which carries a license fee of hundreds of dollars per user - I think it's safe to say they weren't making negative comments about BK simply because they don't like its license.

for open acs it looks free

I know bitkeeper was considered when the Perforce choice was made, I have no idea what the reasoning of the decision was, though.

One way to do it is simply to have Apache and AOLserver sit next to one another. This might not be the best way to have content be sucked into the CR, but it would allow for file uploading at the very least.

As far as getting webDAV built into AOLserver, a top AOLserver hacker estimated it would take 3-4 weeks to simply get the functionality into it, perhaps 6-8 weeks to build a more sophisticated interface with an API and so on.

I've got some things brewing if you want to contact me.

talli

I noticed that Jigsaw, the W3C's Java-based web server, has a
WebDAV module (http://www.w3.org/Jigsaw/). I wonder how hard
it would be to adapt it to work with nsjava.

The code isn't finished, and yeah, it's in python. However, as an
interim measure, it might be possible to use the python libraries
and slowly replace them later.

Any thoughts?

A much more effective way of doing which wouldn't require some wacky hacks is to have apache and aolserver running alongside of one another. (Apache 2.0 has webdav built in to the base system.) I spoke with Rob Mayoff about this stuff who said he personally runs such a system for a personal site. He was also the one that also suggested the time frame for building webDAV support into AOLserver.

talli

It would be amazingly awesome if webDAV could be used to post content directly into the DB, via MS Word, Dreamweaver, GoLive or Emacs. In order to do that, either an OACS module or an AOLserver module would probably have to be built. At least that's what I've found in my general research.

Everyone in the OACS IRC channel is pretty much sick of me asking uneducated webDAV questions, so at least that's what they've told me to shut up.

talli