kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Jake <jake@xxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 5 Feb 2014, Brian Sidebotham wrote:

> On 5 February 2014 10:11, Jake <jake@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > I just want to say the same thing that a lot of other people have been
> > saying for a long time.  Bazaar is holding kicad back.  I am yet another
> > developer who would be contributing to improving the project if it weren't
> > kept in an arcane and frustrating VCS.
> >
> > So, if you're putting letters like this in a pile somewhere, just go ahead
> > and put this one in the pile.
> >
> > I really would love it if kicad went to git, not just to make it easy for me
> > to contribute, but for lots and lots of people who would jump in and help.
> >
> > thank you for everything you've done and all that you will do
> > -jake
>
> Hi Jake,
>
> Did you read the whole of this subject? Go ahead and use Git if you
> want, no-one is going to stop you. Links have been provided on
> information to allow you to develop using Git.
>
> We look forward to your contributions.
>
> Best Regards, Brian.

Hi Brian,

I assume you're referring to git-bzr-ng which I was told about on irc. 
Supposedly this can allow a git user to interact with the bazaar system 
transparently.  That would be great, except i can't get it to work.

Maybe i'm dumb, and i don't know how to install it.  I cloned the repo 
from https://github.com/termie/git-bzr-ng but there is no install script, 
so it does not give me a git bzr command.  I tried a few things with 
git-bzr (the python script that is the entirety of the package) but I was 
not familiar enough with the bzr system to make it work.  Of course I 
could dedicate hours to studying this script and the bazaar system, but 
i'm not going to do that and I don't expect most people will.

Even if i had been able to get it to work, it would only have been by 
finding the right people in irc to direct me to the script, and then 
putting more work into that.  It's the same friction that everyone has 
been mentioning.  It is a real thing, this friction.

Maybe i'm not a very good developer and I wouldn't have a lot of large 
patches to fix tough issues in the project, but I am a regular user of 
kicad (i make boards regularly) and I have a lot of suggestions on how to 
make it the best program for the job.  I want to do this, but I have so 
far been unable to figure out how to work with the code.

I did not expect to write another post about this difficult issue, but you 
did ask.  I see a lot of other people saying the same thing.

I agree that a git bridge like git-bzr would make it much easier for 
people like me and others, to the point of mitigating this whole debate. 
Is there a place where the use of git-bzr is documented, in the context of 
kicad, on the webpage or somewhere?  It would be nice to be able to point 
to that quick howto, to help people who want to contribute and don't know 
bazaar.

thank you
-jake