On Sun, 2007-11-11 at 09:25 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote: > This is a different operation than having every developer have his own > copy - or at least one in every location where development happens. The > ability to work disconnected was being touted as a feature, But what > happens if a release needed to be done at the central build system and > the work some remote developer thinks is committed has not actually made > it there because it is still disconnected? If you're disconnected, "make build" or a not yet existent "make commit" fails. Of course you need a connection to get the build system to build a package. But you can develop things locally (make srpm, make i386, ..., test things) and e.g. easily revert changes that didn't work out because you have a VCS available, even in a plane. The hurdle to experiment with new things is much lower if you can easily get back to a working state. Being able to work disconnected (to a feasible extent) is just one feature of a distributed VCS: - Take a sponsor and a new contributor. With a DVCS, the new contributor wouldn't need immediate write access to the build repository. He could do his thing in his local repository (for which he wouldn't need anybody's permission). His sponsor would check what he did (AFAIK they're expected to keep an eye on what their sponsored people do) and could pull changesets from that person's repo, or apply bundled changesets that got sent around via mail, then build. If the sponsor has enough trust in that person, write access can be granted and the contributor can push/build by himself. - I won't elaborate on embargoed security fixes again, neither will I do that on the possibility of a two-way flow of changes between Fedora and downstream (forked) distributions. + Nils -- Nils Philippsen / Red Hat / nphilipp@xxxxxxxxxx "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- B. Franklin, 1759 PGP fingerprint: C4A8 9474 5C4C ADE3 2B8F 656D 47D8 9B65 6951 3011 -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list