The Debate Continues Over How To Transition GCC's SVN Repository To Git

Under the planned time-line for transitioning to a Git workflow for the GNU Compiler Collection that was established back at the GNU Tools cauldron conference, 16 December was to be the cut-off for deciding which Git conversion program to use for translating their massive SVN repository into Git. That puts today as the deadline in order to meet their goal of switching over to Git at the start of 2020, but it looks like it could take several more days to decide their SVN-to-Git approach.

The longtime effort for moving GCC's repository to Git has been managed by Eric S Raymond with his "Reposurgeon" software that has been used for helping out several other high-profile projects. But coming more recently was Maxim Kuvyrkov with his SVN to Git conversion script based on the well-known git-svn utility. Should you not be aware of these efforts, see the recent The GCC Git Conversion Heats Up With Hopes Of Converting Over The Holidays.

Anyhow, with today being the supposed cut-off for deciding which route they'll take for their Git conversion, the mailing list has been extremely lively.

Many are in favor of ESR's Reposurgeon while others want to more closely evaluate the output of both. Of course, it's led to a lot of arguments and ESR frequently chiming in with his beliefs.

From my unofficial tallying, it seems to be siding with Reposurgeon but it's a matter that is clear there won't be any consensus reached today. But at least in the days ahead hopefully a concrete decision will be made and it looks like sometime in January the GNU Compiler Collection could be kicking off the new decade by utilizing Git.