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Fossil – High-reliability, distributed software configuration management system

24 points by saintPirelli 8y ago

mikece 8y ago
In terms of GitHub alternatives, which is clearly a trending topic this week at HN, Fossil is one of the most interesting to me because it's not just source control but contains an issue tracker, Wiki, and a built-in http server as well. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether it has native support for Pull Requests or not.
bipson 8y ago
I realize this is returning because of the current events, just for reference, (some of the) previous discussions on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15752725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15752725] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13668952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13668952] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12673229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12673229] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8697028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8697028]
- merricksb 8y ago
  Also, 2 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17230766 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17230766
mmoez 8y ago
We've been using Fossil for more than 6 years as our primary SCM for more than 30 internal projects. No problems with it so far. Its easy deployment as well as the ability to run a full SCM with a Web UI from a 3 or 4 MB executable on Windows or Linux is baffling for any new developer who is introduced to it.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  How many people do you have working on your projects? We tried fossil a few years ago but it was too barebones to implement our processes.
  - mmoez 8y ago
    A dozen at most per project. I must also note that we've built in 2012 a multi-project Web UI over it that proved useful to empower project managers to create their own repositories and manage ACLs (One day we'll probably release that thing since it offers a Github-like experience with Fossil at its core.) By the way, right now the biggest project Fossil manages for us is a source code for a 15 years old project (still maintained) with a footprint of around 100 MB (source code in C/C#/XML/Bash/Python/BAT, docs, XML config/spec files.)
    - exikyut 8y ago
      That web UI will be interesting to many, I'm quite confident - and considering the exodus that's recently happened, people are looking for exactly those kinds of upper-management-friendly interfaces for VCS. I was just wondering... maybe put a few screenshots on a landing page along with a "coming soon"... could solicit some feedback, and capitalize on the current trend of looking for alternatives.
krylon 8y ago
At work, I really like the fact that the whole program is just one executable I can drop anywhere on my PATH and get to work. The builtin wiki is very nice, too.

24 points by saintPirelli 8y ago

In terms of GitHub alternatives, which is clearly a trending topic this week at HN, Fossil is one of the most interesting to me because it's not just source control but contains an issue tracker, Wiki, and a built-in http server as well. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether it has native support for Pull Requests or not.

bipson 8y ago

I realize this is returning because of the current events, just for reference, (some of the) previous discussions on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15752725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15752725] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13668952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13668952] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12673229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12673229] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8697028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8697028]

merricksb 8y ago
Also, 2 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17230766 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17230766

mmoez 8y ago

We've been using Fossil for more than 6 years as our primary SCM for more than 30 internal projects. No problems with it so far. Its easy deployment as well as the ability to run a full SCM with a Web UI from a 3 or 4 MB executable on Windows or Linux is baffling for any new developer who is introduced to it.

maxxxxx 8y ago
How many people do you have working on your projects? We tried fossil a few years ago but it was too barebones to implement our processes.
- mmoez 8y ago
  A dozen at most per project. I must also note that we've built in 2012 a multi-project Web UI over it that proved useful to empower project managers to create their own repositories and manage ACLs (One day we'll probably release that thing since it offers a Github-like experience with Fossil at its core.) By the way, right now the biggest project Fossil manages for us is a source code for a 15 years old project (still maintained) with a footprint of around 100 MB (source code in C/C#/XML/Bash/Python/BAT, docs, XML config/spec files.)
  - exikyut 8y ago
    That web UI will be interesting to many, I'm quite confident - and considering the exodus that's recently happened, people are looking for exactly those kinds of upper-management-friendly interfaces for VCS. I was just wondering... maybe put a few screenshots on a landing page along with a "coming soon"... could solicit some feedback, and capitalize on the current trend of looking for alternatives.

krylon 8y ago

At work, I really like the fact that the whole program is just one executable I can drop anywhere on my PATH and get to work. The builtin wiki is very nice, too.