[OSM-dev] mod_tile stable version ?

[Bernard Fouché]

Le 28/03/2013 15:36, Kai Krueger a écrit :
>
>
> In git, despite being distributed you can't really do that (unless everyone
> has push rights). Although everyone can create a new git repository and
> commit their patches to it and technically there is no upstream or official
> repository anymore, socially that doesn't work. It just becomes even more
> confusing to the user of a software if there are tens of different
> repositories they could potentially pull from, each with a different set of
> patches. From a usability point of view, there needs to be a single official
> repository.
>
As a user of many different projects/packages (and a developer of 
in-house projects) I fully agree about git. For instance we have some 
old application based on php-gtk: the mailing list is dead (zero 
traffic), what was the official site isn't updated for years.

A few persons made they own git repo instead of reviving the original 
website/repo. It is now impossible to know who really continues the 
development, what repo is supposed to be better than another, if there 
is still a project leader, etc. In the end we have planned to rewrite 
our application using anything else than php-gtk. Would a main repo 
still exist and show activity (by incorporating patches from people 
being today on github), we would continue to use php-gtk (mainly because 
our application doesn't evolve much and fits the need it was designed 
for). Now we have the feeling we rely on a dead project with no central 
control and we have to abandon it because it is not possible any more to 
know exactly what version is available and supported by whom.

Git seems to have been designed for a very hierarchical organization 
allowing each layer of the pyramid to benefit from the work of lower 
layers by forcing code validation when a  pull operation is done, every 
layer functioning with a 'network of trust' of the lower layer. However 
as soon as there isn't a central point known to be the reference point 
holding current/stable versions and no hierarchical organization, git 
brings anarchy because there is no choice but to clone a repo and expose 
it to the world even for the smallest patch. Copies of the same repo on 
github are numerous. So numerous that every time I google something and 
find only a list of gitub repo and no central site pointing to some 
official repo I give up and try to find a similar project but better 
managed.

SVN and git imply having a central official repo, there was no choice 
with SVN but the current gitmania seems to have buried this need while 
it is a crucial one.

   Bernard