[Nix-dev] new possible movement to git (?)

[Paul Eipper]

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 10:44 AM, Eelco Dolstra <e.dolstra at tudelft.nl> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 08/24/2011 11:02 PM, Shea Levy wrote:
>
>> It has been over a year since this discussion and I have not seen any
>> move toward implementing the suggestions in the thread. If this is
>> simply due to inertia, I would like to offer up help similar to what
>> Marc Weber offers in his initial email (migrating scripts, providing
>> advice to users, etc.). If it is because the NixOS community is
>> undecided as to which vcs to switch to, perhaps we should have a
>> discussion about how to fairly discuss and decide such things?
>
> I've been meaning to set a Git migration into motion for a while, but I
> haven't really been able to find the time.  (Or the motivation, really - I
> don't seem to be suffering from Subversion to the same extent as other
> people...)
>
> Anyway, to make a switch to a new DVCS more worthwhile, I'd like to use it
> as an opportunity to improve NixOS/Nixpkgs stability.  Right now doing an
> "svn up" is rather dangerous, since the trunk it quite often in a broken
> state.  Also, the binaries in the Nixpkgs channel lag behind the Subversion
> repository, so doing an upgrade may require building lots of packages from
> source.
>
> So it would be nice if we had a more stable tree that users can update from
> safely.  For example, we could have these Nixpkgs/NixOS trees/branches:
>
> - An "unstable" tree which receives developer commits.  It might be in a
> broken state, so end users shouldn't use it.  Hydra continuously builds it.
>  Of course, complicated changes should be done in a feature tree/branch and
> pulled in when they're done.
>
> - A "tested" tree that automatically gets updated from the "unstable" tree
> when some set of Nixpkgs and NixOS tests succeed *and* the Nixpkgs channel
> is up to date.  This tree should be fairly safe to use.
>
> - A "stable" tree that gets updated manually and conservatively (e.g., only
> security or stability updates).
>
> Does this sound reasonable?
>
> About where to host the repositories: we could do it on nixos.org, but using
> Github is rather nice because then I don't have to manage users or set up a
> web interface, and the pull request management seems rather nice.
>
> Random point: should the NixOS and Nixpkgs trees be in the same repository?
>  I think so, since it allows them to be updated atomically, which is
> important given that Nixpkgs and NixOS changes are often related.
>
> --
> Eelco Dolstra | http://www.st.ewi.tudelft.nl/~dolstra/

If I may add to the discussion, please check this workflow model for
git, it could help deciding on the branching model for nix:

http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/


Also, I think the `merge --no-ff` could help solve the issue of
keeping branching information for the commits that Michael, Shea and
Peter were discussing.

att,
--
Paul Eipper