id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	priority	milestone	component	version	resolution	keywords	cc	launchpad_bug
1226	boutique VC in boutique language raises bar for contributions	gdt	zooko	"I tried to be able to use darcs.  If all went well, this would require building it from a packaging system and then learning enough to be able to get the sources and then create and send patches.
I found that pkgsrc has 2.0.2, which is old, but Zooko said it should work.  But then ghc didn't build.  This is all arguably lame of pkgsrc, but it shows that the number of people who care about ghc and darcs is low --- most things not only build but are reasonably current.   My Copious Spare Time cannot support maintaining a boutique language so that I can build a boutique version control system so that I can maybe send a patch.

Were tahoe in git, I would have just cloned it and been fine, and I suspect I'm not alone.  hg or bzr I would have figured out (but I haven't had to yet).  I gather there is some aesthetic quality to darcs having a theory of patches, but I believe that other modern DVCSes would be adequate, because tahoe-lafs does not appear to have odd/complicated requirements.  I think there is great merit to using tools that are in common use and that can be built/run using language environments that are mainstream enough so that systems without them can be called broken.  (For example, if I said I couldn't compile C programs or run perl I would expect to get laughed at.)

It's hard to tell how many people have been discouraged from contributing because of this, but I think consideration of a move to a mainstream tool is warranted.
"	defect	closed	minor	undecided	dev-infrastructure	n/a	fixed	darcs