[SCC_Active_Members] Subversion as a basis for software archive

[Tim Shoppa]

Bob Fraley <fraley at acm.org> wrote:
>   At last week's SPC meeting I kicked off a discussion about the 
> technology for maintaining the software digital archive.  I proposed 
> that we use a Software Configuration Management (SCM) tool to 
> maintain the archive, and to make the proposal more complete, 
> suggested that Subversion is a good choice.  I am quite open to other 
> possible choices, but use Subversion as a starting point for 
> comparing other options.

For managing source code or documents that humans edit,
Subversion is a fine choice. Others will bristle at
certain brands but I don't think it's a big deal. It's
like a shelving system, if all your stuff is just scattered
around the floor any kind of shelving system is going to be
a better choice than just walking over it every day.

Having a SCM tool to manage the tools that are developed to recover
and convert media images is a good thing. From my experience at
writing such tools over the past 20 years, the tools branch off
whenever an exception is found to a media format or there's some
special case to cover, and everyone who touches them add their
own flags of convenience or necessity and keeping track of all
the variations in these tools, who did them, and why, and what
for, is a prime example of why you want a SCM, and a SCM that
deals with a distributed community is even better. If that SCM
can also help document the various formats and their exceptions,
that's even better. If that SCM can import and export to other
common (even invariant) SCM formats, that makes it perfect,
because this SCM will not be the first nor the last used by
CHM and the big world.

As my personal estimate as to the scope of software tools
that will be developed: For every computer there will be several
major OS's. For every OS there will be several important file
formats. For every file format or application there might be
a tool or a variant of a tool used to convert character
sets/formats/whatever. Just thinking of the existing tools out there in the
wild-wild-world, there are hundreds if not thousands of filesystem and
media-archiving tools, and I am personally responsible (to blame?)
for modifying their sources willy-nilly for the job at hand,
so there are thousands of peculiar variants just in my personal
experience.

But (and I cannot state this loudly enough):

USING A SCM TOOL TO MANAGE BINARY MEDIA IMAGES, OR PICTURES,
OR FILES THAT ARE NOT TRULY "SOURCE" (EITHER CODE OR DOCUMENT
BEING DEVELOPED TODAY BY HUMAN BEINGS) IS JUST PLAIN STUPID.

There are tools out there to help manage digital pictures, I am
not expert in them but hit my head against them every so often,
and IIRC the CHM has already chosen some tools there.

> My biggest reservation with this system is that we would need to 
> decide all aspects of the museum system before starting to do 
> anything.

What about stuff that's already been done? Both at CHM and around
the world. Some of us have been working at the tasks with little
organization (or a contrary organization) for a few decades now!

Tim.