[vdr] VDR Development

[Udo Richter]

VDR User wrote:
> What ever happened to the idea of setting up VDR deveopment on
> mercurial to allow the main contributors who want to work on it to do
> so without hassle/delay?  

My 2c on this:

Lets think this through: An open VDR repository for everyone to get in 
their personal 'I want this' patches. Surely this will lead to chaos, 
since no one really oversees the needs of all VDR users. (Take 
sourcecaps vs. lnbsharing as example.)

So we have to restrict things. Only a few trusted dev's getting write 
access. In any case changes that go beyond simple bug fixing would 
require discussions about whether things go into the right direction, 
and I'm pretty sure that none of the trusted dev's would ever check in 
any changes without a previous ack by Klaus anyway.

So if Klaus ack's anything anyway, why does anyone except Klaus actually 
need write access?


There are however some pro's for a public repository:

- With a public repository, the need for frequent developer releases 
wouldn't be that high, as people who really want the latest greatest 
could pull it at any time. Dev releases could be done less frequent at 
more stable points.

- Bug fixes can be pushed between point releases more easily. (There are 
bug fix patches that are waiting for 1.6.0-2 or 1.7.1 for some time now.)

- With a distributed repository system like Mercurical, it would also 
easily be possible to do external user branches to support more 
cutting-edge features, as long as some other maintainer keeps them up to 
date. Think of it as something like the -mm kernels, or as the bigpatch 
/ extensions-patch. And if things get Klaus' approval, they can be 
easily merged back into main VDR too.


To sum up things: A public repository may be useful, but probably in a 
different way than some people think.


Cheers,

Udo