[cvsnt] Future of CVSNT?

[Arthur Barrett]

Bryce,

Thanks for your feedback on the SVN comparison.

I will try to take your comments on board for some changes coming up in
the next week or two.  You are not the first person to "misinterpret"
it, so it obviously could use some extra work.  

I've laid out below a more detailed explanation of that page and its
purpose just for your information, however if you want to "get into our
heads" then please read the "Works Simply, Simply Works" paragraph on
the CVS Server marketing page:
http://march-hare.com/cvsnt/features/cvsnt/

The "true rename support" listed in the comparison is defined on the
same page as "not based on copy/delete" - which is true as far as we
were/are aware - i.e.: supported by CVSNT not supported by SVN as of May
20 2005.

Our eBook describes in detail how to use the rename support, and what is
and is not supported.  Tony does not recommend "move" which is not
listed in the comparison.  

The difference between "move" and "rename" carefully avoided in the
comparison since it is a marketing page, and that has been discussed on
the list before.  I *think* the consensus was that the intent of the
page is clear enough.  Move is fully supported in CVSNT 2.6.

As far as I am concerned the page is extremely even handed.  Many
"features" of SVN in my opinion actively encourage poor Configuration
Management and make SVN a poor basis for SCM.  I'd love to see a few
"objective" comparisons between CVSNT/CVS Suite and
SVN/Perforce/PVCS/CC/VSS, however I do not think that March Hare's role
as a vendor is to provide that.  

My definition of an  "objective" comparison would be one undertaken by
three or more SCM managers, where the vendors documentation was used (in
our case the eBook) and the findings/questions were provided to each
vendor for feedback prior to publication, no more that 24% of the cost
of the report should be paid for my any one CM vendor, and no more than
49% of the total cost should be provided by CM vendors.

Finally, the SVN comparison page is not designed to reach "open source
advocates".  It is designed to reach commercial software developers and
CM/Quality managers who are reviewing different CM systems, and who may
have received some disinformation about CVSNT.

March Hare's primary interest in marketing CVSNT/CVS Suite is to get
more people using effective configuration management in their projects,
it is not to churn users from the latest fashionable version control
tool to the next.
http://march-hare.com/cvspro/faq/faq1.asp#9dd

Once again, thanks for your feedback and I will attempt to take your
comments on board during the next update.

Kind Regards,



Arthur Barrett


-----Original Message-----
From: Bryce Schober [mailto:bryce.schober at gmail.com] 
Sent: 02 January 2006 15:38
To: Arthur Barrett
Cc: cvsnt at cvsnt.org; Steve Rankin; Mark Raymond; Carles Zaragoza; Tony
Hoyle; Udo Pott
Subject: Re: [cvsnt] Future of CVSNT?


On 12/29/05, Arthur Barrett <arthur.barrett at march-hare.com> wrote:

> Can you help get word out on CVSNT and CVS Suite in 2006?  Or: is 
> there something more that us at March Hare could be doing?

I suggest that your "comparison" to SVN be more even-handed or, dare I
say, more truthful. The one thing that sticks out to me (because it's
what I want most) is your "true rename support". I cannot speak so much
to the other points, as I haven't looked into them as deeply. Your lead
developer cannot recommend its usage on production repositories, and it
has a much narrower scope than the competing product (no directory or
file-moving-between-directories renames). Bad marketing of a for-profit
open source product is going to compare unfavorably with other open
source products. I'm not saying that the fact that you're making money
and supporting a great open-source product is a problem. I'm saying that
open-source advocates (whom you are trying to reach by that comparison)
are going to be really turned off by that kind of bad marketing.

--
Bryce Schober