Re: "Producting Open Source Software" book and distributed SCMs

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>]

On Wed, 2 May 2007, Jakub Narebski wrote:
> 
> Actually Karl Fogel wrote in "Producting Open Source Software" that he
> recommends and uses 'soft' partial commit access; it means that committing
> is restricted to a part of project for some by a guideline, but is not
> enforced by the tool (by SCM).

Oh, absolutely. Except that really does require a lot of trust up front, 
which is the problem with commit access to begin with - you automatically 
have a very clear (and *big*) difference between insiders and outsiders, 
and there is no "gradual" way to move from one to the other.

So yes, for practical reasons, "commit access" really is almost always an 
all-or-nothing thing for most centralized setups, because nothing else 
really works. And when it isn't, it's just a horrible horrible pain in the 
*ss.

What people do instead of commit access is to set up triggers to notify 
people about certain subsystems being modified. Which is a good idea, but 
it's really a totally different thing.

> P.S. I recommend actually reading the book (at http://producingoss.com)
> instead of relying on my understanding of it.

It actually looks like a fine book, even though I think Karl is totally 
off in not seeing the big difference between centralized and distributed. 

I saw it at the local Borders, and considered buying it. I didn't even 
realize that it apparently is downloadable too.

And it talks about a lot of other things than just SCM's.

			Linus