[Python-Dev] PEP 481 - Migrate Some Supporting Repositories to Git and Github

[Ethan Furman]

On 11/30/2014 10:05 AM, Guido van Rossum wrote:

> Python has a long history (all the way back to my choice of a MIT-style license for the first release) of mixing "free"
> and "non-free" uses and tools -- for example on Windows we consciously chose to align ourselves with the platform
> tooling rather than with the (minority) free tools available, Python has been ported to many commercial platforms, and
> I've always encouraged use of Python in closed-source situations.

For this I am grateful, and agree with.

> Finally. And this may actually be the most important point. Python people should be doing stuff that makes Python better
> (both taken in the most inclusive way possible). For stuff that's not unique to Python but can be used by many other
> open-source projects, such as compilers, DVCS tools, or mailing lists, we should not be wasting our precious time on
> building and maintaining our own tools or administering the servers on which they run. And historically we've not done a
> great job on maintenance and administration.

My issues with GitHub range from selfish to philosophical:

  - (selfish) I don't want to learn git

  - (practical) from what I hear git can have issues with losing history -- in a
    project that has many volunteer and part-time developers, using a tool that
    can munge your data just doesn't seem very wise

  - (practical) supporting git and hg means learning two different workflows

  - (philosophical) in a commercial world we vote with our dollars (don't like how
    a company behaves?  don't buy their product); in an OSS world we vote by whose
    services/software we use;  I don't want to support, or appear to support, a
    company that is abusive and sexist towards its employees:  it is not what the
    PSF supports, and it's definitely not what I support.

Not everyone is suited to demonstrate in the streets, but it shouldn't be that hard to not use a company with
acknowledged bad practices.

--
~Ethan~

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