[LAU] Updating without cvs or svn

[James Cameron]

On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 04:03:05AM +0200, alex stone wrote:
> My question was one of curiosity if CVS or SVN based repos could be
> simply D/L as a snapshot build, i.e., tarball, as Ray wisely pointed
> out.

CVS, uses a non-HTTP connection, or SSH, so a repository cannot be
downloaded using a web browser.  But there exist CVS hosting services
that provide HTTP access to the reference sandbox, or tarballs.  The
cvsweb package for example can be used to do this, but it has to run on
the CVS server.

SVN, can operate over its own non-HTTP connection, or SSH, or using
WebDAV over HTTP, but it depends on what the hosting service has
enabled.  Again, some SVN hosting services provide plain file HTTP
access to the repository, and some projects provide snapshot tarballs.

If you find yourself often running code from projects via CVS or SVN,
because what you need is not yet released, then urge the project to
release more often.  You can do this by volunteering to test releases.

(If you're a release engineer reading this, and you're saying "no, a
release is a complex and difficult task, it can take days" ...  you
*can* release in 30 seconds if you invest in the scripting, and remove
steps from the release process that are not needed in beta versions.
I'm happy to take questions on how to streamline software release
methods ... but you have to have a documented method to start with.  I'm
release engineer for pptp, pptpd, netrek, and a few other things).

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/