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Re: [spaces-dev] SVN or CVS?
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Thomas,
Don't be confused - it's actually an easy situation to describe (but not
an easy one to fix).
Now I'm really confused.
From a feature and ease of use standpoint, SVN is far superior to CVS.
A vast amount of projects outside of Eclipse are moving away from CVS
for that reason. We do not and will not develop software dependent on
Subversive in any way. We just happen to keep it in an SVN repo hosted
at Eclipse. Where and how does IP come into play here?
You're correct about storing our code in SVN - and I'm fine with that.
You're wrong about Spaces not being dependent on Subversive. The Spaces
tool plans to have five functions: Publish (a binary), Share (your
source), Promote (and advertise), Collaborate (via forums or IM), and I
forget the fifth one. Anyway, my idea was that when you chose "Share",
we (Spaces) would reach into the Subversive data structures and set it
all up for one: one-click set-up. But to do that we have to depend on
Subversive. The problem with that is described below.
Are you saying that Eclipse projects should avoid keeping source in
SVN repos in general? If so, on what do you base that?
Nope, not at all. This is only about which plug-ins the Eclipse
Foundation can distribute (and thus which plug-ins Eclipse-based
projects should rely on).
CVS is developed and released under GPL. The Eclipse CVS client is
clean-room and of course EPL. Yet it implements a GPL'ed protocol and
can only function together with a GPL'ed server installation.
According to the GPL FAQ, connecting to a GPL server is not "linking"
and thus does not trigger the viral nature of the GPL. Also, the Eclipse
Foundation can run GPL server code, we just can't distribute GPL Code.
Thus using CVS is not a problem at all.
SVN on the other hand, is Apache/BSD style license. The
svnClientAdapter, and the JavaHL CLI, is also Apache/BSD. The
Subclipse and Subversive clients are both EPL. The only part I know
has a GPL'ish license is the optional SVNKit.
Apparently (and here I'm just going on what I've been told), the
Subversive client requires the use of GPLed library jars. According to
the GPL FAQ, linking to jars, even through extension points, does
trigger the viral nature of the GPL and thus the Eclipse Foundation
cannot distribute this code (the Subversive clients). So until this IP
issue is cleared up either by finding a similar library with an
acceptable license or rewriting the code or something, the Eclipse
Foundation cannot distribute the Subversive code. And thus the
Foundation's Spaces code cannot depend on the
not-able-to-be-distributed-by-the-Foundation Subversive code.
I know that Subclipse revoked their submission since they could not
make it pass the Eclipse IP barrier for some reason. I still haven't
understood what that reason was.
I didn't hear the reason they revoked their submission - I got the
impression they just didn't want to follow the Eclipse processes (a
perfectly reasonable answer on their part, but not one that makes _my_
life easier).
- Bjorn
