[FSUG-Bangalore] SVN or GIT?

[Parthan SR]

Shashi wrote:
> This question is for those who care about revision control...
>
> Is SVN better or GIT better in the point of view of usability
> practicality and being "free" in rivision control?
>
> the winner decided by this thread will be used as the rivision control
> mech. in my new site...
>   
Well this is like asking whether set dosa or uthappam. Both has his own 
pros and cons, and a project should decide upon it's basic nature of 
contribution. GIT is developed to cater to the needs to Linux Kernel 
development, where the contributors are both huge in numbers and 
distributed around the globe. Although what goes in and our of the main 
code base is decided by a minority of the contributors, what GIT 
supports is the ability of a wannabe contributor to get a local copy of 
the entire code base, start hacking around without affecting the main 
trunk. The local copy is very individual and has very minimal relation 
to the main code base. Secondly, when you know another one who has some 
cool hacks in his local copy he can push his changes into your code and 
you can push yours to him, and all this without affecting anyone else or 
especially the main code base.

On the other hand, Subversion is as good but for projects  who wants to 
maintain everything on a central repository. Though people can indeed 
checkout a local copy, when somebody wants to work on a fork or a 
parallel method for existing code base without affecting the main trunk, 
they need some level of privileges to create branches. Also, one needs 
commit access to push his/her code into the code base (even to the 
branch). The advantages are a centrally managed code base, where even 
branches are managed. Additionally, having a commit access to a FOSS 
project is considered good enough to have been certified and recognized 
as a contributer and even hacker. It's a privilege to get a commit 
access to a repository. It's well suited for less scoped projects where 
the contributors are limited in numbers and not as widely distributed as 
that of Linux Kernel.

Well, it's your call to decide which suits your needs. I have been using 
and working with subversion repositories for 3 years now and I haven't 
yet had a time when I felt something missing, I can vouch for an svn 
repository for source code management for any decent sized project.

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With Regards,

Parthan "technofreak"
<gpg>  2FF01026
<blog> http://blog.technofreak.in