[MPlayer-users] git/svn repos (was: Nvidia driver 185 not supported anymore for vdpau in mplayer svn?)

[Uoti Urpala]

On Thu, 2009-12-10 at 10:31 +0200, Pasi Kärkkäinen wrote: 
> So the git tree is basicly a fork of mplayer svn? 
> Is there some reason of not synchronizing the repositories? 
> 
> Are the new features considered bad in some way, so that they cannot be
> integrated to the 'official' svn tree? 
> 
> Just trying to get the big picture here :)

I'll try to give a reasonably short version.

The basic reason the split exists is a difference in opinions between
myself and Reimar about how to do development. MPlayer was originally
started by people able to write code but with no clue about how to
run/maintain a project, and has historically had quite bad development
practices. Though some of the worst things have been fixed, the people
who got used to those practices in the early project never really
completely abandoned them in favor of any better ones, and Reimar still
insists on doing things in much the same way. I think Carl is about the
only new developer there has been since 2005 or so who seems to believe
those practices are actually a good idea.

I originally started the git repo for other reasons, including doing
some large changes that were better initially done in a branch separate
from the svn trunk that users compiled by default. However the above is
why there still exists a separate svn repo where the changes (and now
later ones) have not been integrated. As far as I can tell Reimar is not
willing to accept code that has been developed in a way different from
what he prefers, regardless of the quality or functionality of that
code.

The current situation is that I maintain the git repo and Reimar
maintains the svn repo, with Carl doing some smaller stuff. Other
developers are not active and/or competent enough to have a major effect
on the overall situation. The git repository supports most of the
functionality that exists in svn but not vice versa.

There are enough changes in the git repo that it's very unlikely they'll
be duplicated in svn. If I for some reason stopped maintaining the git
repo and nobody else stepped up to handle overall maintenance of the
codebase then most of the changes would probably be simply lost. If
Reimar stops working on svn then the svn repo will likely stop being an
at all viable alternative and fade away pretty quickly. If neither of
those happens then both repos may exist for some time. In the long term
I don't see much justification for the continued existence of the
current kind of a separate svn repo though. The git repo has better
features, and that difference is likely to increase rather than decrease
in the future. While some of the changes involve tradeoffs, most notably
the removal of the internal GUI (keeping it working after other changes
would have required extra work which I decided was not worth it given
how bad a shape the GUI was already in), I think they are overall
beneficial to a significant majority of users. The main reason the svn
repo exists separately without the git changes - wanting to do
development in a particular way different from how the git repo is
handled - is not in itself beneficial to any users, and I doubt it'll
result in the creation of any significant advantages in the future
either.