[Python-Dev] alternate pserver access for python CVS?

[Guido van Rossum]

> Hmm, but how is CVS read-only access different from downloading
> a tarball ? (except maybe for the different bandwidth they require
> in case of updates)

CVS read-only makes it simple for anybody who has CVS installed to
check out a particular branch.

Downloading a tarball means you have to know how to set up a CVS
repository, which most CVS users never need to do these days.  (It's
easy, but I probably wouldn't be able to do it myself without having
to study the manual for 15 minutes, and I've done it before!)

Downloading a tarball also means that each time you want to get a
newer version, you have to redo the steps to set up the repository.

Using a CVS mirror based on the tarballs means that only the mirror
administrator has to do that, and other users can simply hook up to
the mirror and use "cvs update" like they are used to.

> Perhaps we should setup an rsync server on python.org which allows
> getting at the current snapshot incrementally ?

That would only make sense if it makes sense to have multiple mirrors,
which I'm not convinced of.

(OTOH we might make the CVS tree available through FTP and HTTP and
RSYNC, and then all Python mirror sites would automatically have the
data so all they need to do is run a CVS server on top of it if they
want to, and they have instant mirroring.  This might cause some
mirrors to complain about the amount of data, though -- I don't know
how big th eunpacked repository is.)

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)