We really need to start cleaning the modulesets – one of the biggest problems we had is that the properties are getting misused. “../branches/foobar” is not a module, its part of a path! This is the route to pain, misery and suffering! As I find time I hope to clean this up, but for now the JHBuild mirror seems to be working.

To start using it, just set mirror_policy to “bzr” or “git” in your .jhbuildrc. You probably want a clean slate for this – it won’t doing anything clever in terms of taking over existing SVN checkouts. Another option is

module_mirror_policy = {
  "conduit": "bzr",
  "foobar": "git,
}

I hope to get JHBuild to automate git-svn a little here too (and automatically git-svn init) where appropriate.

<snipped out the bit where i ramble about all the different options people have already suggested. me rambling FTYawn>

There is another approach. The Git protocol is quite easy. The Git pack container format is easy. The basic Git objects are easy. Who says i have to store Git packs in Git? As long as the client Git can grab packs and push packs it is happy. All other operations are local.

So lets take bzr-playground and run something that provides git:// and git+ssh:// access to the bazaar repositories. Push and pull. We’ll still have a central point from which we can view and checkout a GNOME module and the infra work can focus on a single platform. But the choice of tool i use to do my work is (partially at least) back down to me.

I am currently able to read and write the pack container format as well as speak a decent amount of the git-upload-pack and git-receive-pack protocols. It won’t be the first time i’ve serialized or deserialized git objects, so that won’t take very long. Then its just a case of storing things in Bazaar and maintaining a cache of sha1 to bazaar id. Sure, i’m trivializing here, but i am confident that this is doable.

I’m linking to the code I have so far (its an extension of bzr-git) as a gesture that this isnt total vaporware, but it’s not really anything you can try yet.

lp:~johncarr/bzr-git/git-serve

At this point im mainly interested in collecting +1’s and -1’s on the basic concept.

There was a second smaller talk on DVCS that was slightly more productive. Neither side has managed to provide an action plan so far. When the Bazaar and the Git advocates can come to GNOME and say “we have a plan, this is how we are migrating and this is how we are going to fix all the systems that depend on GNOME”.. then we can talk. This whole issue needs some JFDI – we can’t cry/shout until our DVCS is picked, and then expect the sysadmins to take care of it.

On a lighter note, got some swag. Quite happy with the laptop bag, and the T-shirt is quite nice. Doesn’t match the codethink t-shirts though

Now back to cleaning up the Git code so Rob doesn’t harm me.