Releasing Bugzilla to CPAN

[Gabor Szabo]

On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 7:25 AM, Max Kanat-Alexander <mkanat at bugzilla.org> wrote:
> On 03/31/2010 09:51 PM, Gabor Szabo wrote:
>
>>>        No, actually, we recommend that even normal users upgrade using CVS,
>>> currently, which will be bzr for 3.7 and above. All the tarballs we send
>>> out retain the "CVS" directories currently, and will likely retain the
>>> ".bzr" directory (probably as a lightweight checkout) too.
>>
>> ... that sounds crazy.
>
>        Well, I understand how you feel about that, but sometimes when you're
> new on a project, the way that the project operates might seem strange,
> since you are unfamiliar with it or its userbase. The thing to do isn't
> to insult the methodology of the system out of hand, but to instead
> spend some time getting familiar with the system and its existing
> userbase before you make decisions about what should and shouldn't be done.

Sorry for that, I did not want to insult you or the methodology, I was
just very surprised as I have not heard any open source project doing that.
I did work on a corporate project doing that and they suffered a lot
from the close binding to CVS.

>
>> I don't understand why do you recommend upgrade via CVS and why do you
>> distribute the files that belong to the version control system.
>
>        Because many, many people customize Bugzilla, and thus the simplest
> series of step-by-step instructions that are most likely to allow for
> smooth point-release upgrades for everyone, regardless of their
> situation, involve upgrading via CVS. CVS (and bzr) have much better
> merge behavior than just "patch", and we don't even provide patches for
> upgrades between major releases.

I wonder if Bugzilla is so different from every other project or that
maybe the other
projects have not considered such fine tuned (or smooth?) upgrade mechanism.
In the latter case I'd really like to read some explanation - maybe you already
wrote about this elsewhere ? - what are the problems you encounter that you
solve that other projects don't yet solve and how could these projects
solve the
same issue?

What I am saying is that projects can learn from each other. If you
feel that Bugzilla
provides some very good distribution and upgrade mechanism that other project
don't provide then help those project by explaining your way of working.

regards
   Gabor