[p2p-research] [Autonomo.us] ESR complains about "forge" lock-in

Sat Oct 10 16:00:52 CEST 2009

On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 4:39 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> This seems quite significant ... I'm hoping that Sam or Sepp might have
> intelligent commentary on the issue, for publication on the p2p blog ..
> °
> nathan: this also has relevance for the manchester event on collaborative
> platforms,
>
> Michel
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Wes Felter <wesley at felter.org>
> Date: Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 9:21 AM
> Subject: [Autonomo.us] ESR complains about "forge" lock-in
> To: "autonomo.us mailing list" <discuss at lists.autonomo.us>
>
>
> http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1282
>
> "The worst problem with almost all current hosting sites is that
> they’re data jails. You can put data (the source code revision
> history, mailing list address lists, bug reports) into them, but
> getting a complete snapshot of that data back out often ranges from
> painful to impossible."
>

*if* you are using distributed revision control (ie GIT, Mercirual,
DARCS) this is not an issue. Because, you would "push" from the repo
on your local computer, and you can set up scripts to pull or clone
and copy to your own machines and computers

Example:

I can develop FLOWS locally on my own machine here:
http://socialsynergyweb.org/hg/repos/hgwebdir.cgi/flows-dev/  and push
changes to what amounts to a public mirror of the code here
http://code.google.com/p/flows-dev/source/browse/

Mercurial distributed revision control keeps track of everything. So,
in this case, I could host code at
http://socialsynergyweb.org/hg/repos/hgwebdir.cgi/flows-dev/ then push
changes to *all* of the hosting sites (bit bucket, code google, etc,
anyone that supports mercurial), but if they all went down tomorrow,
it wouldn't matter, as long as I automate the updating of
http://socialsynergyweb.org/hg/repos/hgwebdir.cgi/flows-dev/  I would
have something that is at least close to what would be on the hosting
sites.

Distributed revision control effectively stops hosting sites from
being data jails of the code. Maybe they are data jails of issues,
documentation, etc. But, you don't have to use them for that!  We use
http://flows.panarchy.com/index.php?title=Main_Page for instance, not
code google We'll also host our own issue tracking (we will likely use
bugs everywhere a distribted issue reporting) and not use google for
this same reason http://bugseverywhere.org/be/show/HomePage right now,
even docs could be part of mercurial repo, which means docs will live
with copies of code and be locally branchable and changeable and
re-mergable). There is even already an interface that makes this
possible via http://hatta-wiki.org/ which will write documentation
straight to a mercurial repository.

counterpoints I have heard from people include that they are worried
that *I* will disappear, and then hope that the open source project
will be able to continue without me, and so should be hosted in a
public place and not just my servers.  Also, many want the code in
public servers for the visibility they provide, and they are trying to
attract people to the project.

I am personally agnostic to the whole debate. The problem is 100%
solved for me with distributed revision control, distributed
documentation, distributed bug tracking (all of which are possible
now)

> http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1295
>
> "I conclude that the SourceForge/GForge/FusionForge architecture, as
> it is now, is an evolutionary dead end — overspecialized for
> webbiness. To tackle challenges like fixing the data-jail problem,
> scripting, and seamless project migration, one of these systems will
> need to be rebuilt from the inside out."

He's right about source forge being an evolutionary dead end

Yet, I think much of the issue has already been solved with
distributed infrastructure.

A "source forge" site could basically just be a mirror
code/docs/issues, and/or even better yet, an *aggregator* of projects
in the future (this is 100% possible now)

All of that being said, if the writer of the blog posts referenced
above succeeds at his mission, I will applaud him, as there are
probably always going to be some people who reject the distributed
development path and therefore will need services like this.

I just want to make clear that there is already a solution, and it
could even be employed by people who want full control over their
"official release".

>
> Wes Felter
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-- 
-- 
Sam Rose
Social Synergy
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