9 ms·

It's pretty surprising that they are using CVS for a new project

by bickfordb 12y ago

1ris 12y ago
I think it fits their development process very well.
- wereHamster 12y ago
  I assume they don't use branches, or merges, or any of the other VCS features which git/mercurial have and which are difficult to do or even impossible in CVS.
  - ams6110 12y ago
    Incorrect, partly. The release cycle is illustrated here: http://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2009-release_engineering/mgp00016.html http://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2009-release_enginee... They do branch and tag the tree for releases, but development is done in HEAD not in branches as would be customary for git. I'm not an OpenBSD developer but my understanding is that the branches are used for subsequent patching of that release, not as part of "normal" new development work.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    You really think big projects didn't branch or merge before git was developed?
    - wereHamster 12y ago
      I'm sure they did. But wasn't it painful before git/mercurial? That's what I heard from people who used CVS in the past.
      - vidarh 12y ago
        It is/was painful if you try to merge multiple diverging branches. The CVS solution to that is generally "don't do that", or for everyone on long lasting branches to rebase as frequently as possible. But this is not all that much of a problem in small cohesive teams where everyone with commit rights knows what the others are likely to be working on.
      - kasey_junk 12y ago
        CVS was difficult but there were non distributed vcs that had easy branching.
        tptacek 12y ago
        In practice, a lot of the stuff that was difficult about branching and merging was just handled outside the VCS, and projects had rules about what you'd do inside the VCS. It worked, and still does for OpenBSD. At Arbor, the last CVS job I worked (back in ~2003), we did release and dev branches no problem. I don't remember fretting about it much. The big issue I remember is, it was a much bigger deal not to break the build.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
vezzy-fnord 12y ago
OpenBSD is developed as a complete operating system following a cathedral model. LibreSSL is part of the OpenBSD base system (as libssl), which is hosted on CVS. Naturally, so will LibreSSL.
sigzero 12y ago
If you know anything about the OpenBSD project it really isn't surprising at all.
- Touche 12y ago
  Not everyone does "know anything about the OpenBSD project". So instead of the smug comment, why not just explain why this isn't surprising?
  - pestaa 12y ago
    To me the comment didn't sound smug at all -- instead it was sort of an insider joke referring to OpenBSD's philosophy to use only heavily battle tested, rock solid software not unlike CVS.
  - ams6110 12y ago
    It works well for the way they do development and releases, and all their build and test infrastructure is built to use it. And part of it is it's "the devil you know." I have heard that a lot of their devs will use git or hg on their local checkout to help manage their own dev environment. You can find out more about the openbsd philosophy by reading some of the presentations on it at http://www.openbsd.org/papers/ http://www.openbsd.org/papers/
  - xorcist 12y ago
    They've always held on to CVS, taking it so far that they've taken upon themselves to support their own fork of CVS going forward.
    - bakareika 12y ago
      Fun fact: they are not alone in this, I am aware of at least two startups that do the same thing to CVS (one already acquired by Cisco, the other one is ongoing). And having used CVS myself, I strongly disagree with any connotation of "productivity loss because of old SCM" etc. — it all depends on workflow. Kind of like Vim certainly isn't inherently less productive than a shiny new Visual Studio 2022.
X-Istence 12y ago
Every single last thread about OpenBSD or one of their projects has this same exact statement in it ...
kchoudhu 12y ago
Jesus, what is it with this place and any source control system that isn't onboard with the git circlejerk?
segmondy 12y ago
What's so surprising? OpenBSD folks don't fall for the next new shiny thing. 10 years from now, something else might take over git, and everyone will jump to it. OpenBSD folks don't care, if what they have works, they stick to it.
- Peaker 12y ago
  Do you consider "git" a shiny new thing? Using CVS over git in this day and age is a very dumb decision. They may make up for it in other, good decisions. But this decision is a dumb one.
  - currysausage 12y ago
    > But this decision is a dumb one. What is it with this obsession with telling people how to get sh't done? If they write their code on used kleenex using wax crayons and share that using carrier pigeons, I don't give a sh't as long as the finished product is fine.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - danielweber 12y ago
      It's a perfect example of bike-shedding. Most readers have no way of evaluating their crypto primitives, or their nuclear power plant, or a zillion other things. But we can evaluate their source control!
      - EdwardDiego 12y ago
        That bike shed would be way more robust if you used FP to paint it.
    - orblivion 12y ago
      That's fine, but if (and I have no idea if this is the case here) their reason for not wanting to switch to a new source control system is mere stubbornness, they might find that switching to a more efficient source control system frees them up to write even more good code, fix more bugs, etc.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
brynet 12y ago
OpenBSD was one of the first open source projects to make their CVS repositories public, you can read more about it in Chuck Cranor and Theo de Raadt's paper on Anonymous CVS. http://www.openbsd.org/papers/anoncvs-paper.pdf http://www.openbsd.org/papers/anoncvs-paper.pdf http://www.openbsd.org/papers/anoncvs-slides.pdf http://www.openbsd.org/papers/anoncvs-slides.pdf It makes sense, if you consider the fact they have been using for the last ~18 years.

It's pretty surprising that they are using CVS for a new project

1ris 12y ago

I think it fits their development process very well.

wereHamster 12y ago
I assume they don't use branches, or merges, or any of the other VCS features which git/mercurial have and which are difficult to do or even impossible in CVS.
- ams6110 12y ago
  Incorrect, partly. The release cycle is illustrated here: http://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2009-release_engineering/mgp00016.html http://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2009-release_enginee... They do branch and tag the tree for releases, but development is done in HEAD not in branches as would be customary for git. I'm not an OpenBSD developer but my understanding is that the branches are used for subsequent patching of that release, not as part of "normal" new development work.
- tptacek 12y ago
  You really think big projects didn't branch or merge before git was developed?
  - wereHamster 12y ago
    I'm sure they did. But wasn't it painful before git/mercurial? That's what I heard from people who used CVS in the past.
    - vidarh 12y ago
      It is/was painful if you try to merge multiple diverging branches. The CVS solution to that is generally "don't do that", or for everyone on long lasting branches to rebase as frequently as possible. But this is not all that much of a problem in small cohesive teams where everyone with commit rights knows what the others are likely to be working on.
    - kasey_junk 12y ago
      CVS was difficult but there were non distributed vcs that had easy branching.
      - tptacek 12y ago
        In practice, a lot of the stuff that was difficult about branching and merging was just handled outside the VCS, and projects had rules about what you'd do inside the VCS. It worked, and still does for OpenBSD. At Arbor, the last CVS job I worked (back in ~2003), we did release and dev branches no problem. I don't remember fretting about it much. The big issue I remember is, it was a much bigger deal not to break the build.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]

vezzy-fnord 12y ago

OpenBSD is developed as a complete operating system following a cathedral model. LibreSSL is part of the OpenBSD base system (as libssl), which is hosted on CVS. Naturally, so will LibreSSL.

sigzero 12y ago

If you know anything about the OpenBSD project it really isn't surprising at all.

Touche 12y ago
Not everyone does "know anything about the OpenBSD project". So instead of the smug comment, why not just explain why this isn't surprising?
- pestaa 12y ago
  To me the comment didn't sound smug at all -- instead it was sort of an insider joke referring to OpenBSD's philosophy to use only heavily battle tested, rock solid software not unlike CVS.
- ams6110 12y ago
  It works well for the way they do development and releases, and all their build and test infrastructure is built to use it. And part of it is it's "the devil you know." I have heard that a lot of their devs will use git or hg on their local checkout to help manage their own dev environment. You can find out more about the openbsd philosophy by reading some of the presentations on it at http://www.openbsd.org/papers/ http://www.openbsd.org/papers/
- xorcist 12y ago
  They've always held on to CVS, taking it so far that they've taken upon themselves to support their own fork of CVS going forward.
  - bakareika 12y ago
    Fun fact: they are not alone in this, I am aware of at least two startups that do the same thing to CVS (one already acquired by Cisco, the other one is ongoing). And having used CVS myself, I strongly disagree with any connotation of "productivity loss because of old SCM" etc. — it all depends on workflow. Kind of like Vim certainly isn't inherently less productive than a shiny new Visual Studio 2022.

X-Istence 12y ago

Every single last thread about OpenBSD or one of their projects has this same exact statement in it ...

kchoudhu 12y ago

Jesus, what is it with this place and any source control system that isn't onboard with the git circlejerk?

segmondy 12y ago

What's so surprising? OpenBSD folks don't fall for the next new shiny thing. 10 years from now, something else might take over git, and everyone will jump to it. OpenBSD folks don't care, if what they have works, they stick to it.

Peaker 12y ago
Do you consider "git" a shiny new thing? Using CVS over git in this day and age is a very dumb decision. They may make up for it in other, good decisions. But this decision is a dumb one.
- currysausage 12y ago
  > But this decision is a dumb one. What is it with this obsession with telling people how to get sh't done? If they write their code on used kleenex using wax crayons and share that using carrier pigeons, I don't give a sh't as long as the finished product is fine.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - danielweber 12y ago
    It's a perfect example of bike-shedding. Most readers have no way of evaluating their crypto primitives, or their nuclear power plant, or a zillion other things. But we can evaluate their source control!
    - EdwardDiego 12y ago
      That bike shed would be way more robust if you used FP to paint it.
  - orblivion 12y ago
    That's fine, but if (and I have no idea if this is the case here) their reason for not wanting to switch to a new source control system is mere stubbornness, they might find that switching to a more efficient source control system frees them up to write even more good code, fix more bugs, etc.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

brynet 12y ago

OpenBSD was one of the first open source projects to make their CVS repositories public, you can read more about it in Chuck Cranor and Theo de Raadt's paper on Anonymous CVS. http://www.openbsd.org/papers/anoncvs-paper.pdf http://www.openbsd.org/papers/anoncvs-paper.pdf http://www.openbsd.org/papers/anoncvs-slides.pdf http://www.openbsd.org/papers/anoncvs-slides.pdf It makes sense, if you consider the fact they have been using for the last ~18 years.