cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <nowiki>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <h1 align="center">Questions And Criticisms</h1>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <p>This page is a collection of real questions and criticisms that have been
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: raised against fossil together with responses from the program's author.</p>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <b>Fossil sounds like a lot of reinvention of the wheel.
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: Why create your own DVCS when you could have reused mercurial?</b>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <blockquote>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   I wrote it because none of the
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   other available DVCSes met my needs.  If the other DVCSes do
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   meet your needs, then you probably do not need fossil.  But they
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   don't meet mine, and so fossil is necessary for me.
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   Feature provided by fossil that one does not get with other
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   DVCSes:
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   <ol>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   <li> Integrated <a href="wikitheory.wiki">wiki</a>. </li>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   <li> Integrated <a href="bugtheory.wiki">bug tracking</a> </li>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   <li> Immutable artifacts </li>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   <li> self-contained, stand-alone executable </li>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   <li> simple, well-defined,
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:        <a href="fileformat.wiki">enduring file format</a> </li>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   </ol>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: </blockquote>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <b>Why should I use this rather than Trac?</b>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <blockquote>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   <ol>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   <li> Fossil is distributed.  You can view and/or edit tickets, wiki, and
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:        code while off network, then sync your changes later.  With Trac, you
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:        can only view and edit tickets and wiki while you are connected to
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:        the server. </li>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   <li> Fossil is lightweight and fully self-contained.  It is very easy
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:        to setup on a low-resource machine. Fossil does not require an
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:        administator.</li>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   <li> Fossil integrates code versioning into the same repository with
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:        wiki and tickets.  There is nothing extra to add or install.
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:        Fossil is an all-in-one turnkey solution. </li>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh:   </ol>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: </blockquote>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <b>Love the concept here. Anyone using this for real work yet?</b>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <blockquote>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: Fossil is <a href="http://www.fossil-scm.org/">self-hosting</a>.
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: In fact, this page was probably delivered
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: to your web-browser via a working fossil instance.  The same virtual
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: machine that hosts http://www.fossil-scm.org/
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: (a <a href="http://www.linode.com/">Linode 720</a>)
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: also hosts 24 other fossil repositories for various small projects.
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: The documentation files for
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <a href="http://www.sqlite.org/">SQLite</a> are hosted in a
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: fossil repository <a href="http://www.sqlite.org/docsrc/">here</a>,
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: for example.
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: Other projects are also adopting fossil.  But fossil does not yet have
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: the massive user base of git or mecurial.
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: </blockquote>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <b>Fossil looks like the bug tracker that would be in your
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: Linksys Router's administration screen.</p>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <blockquote>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <p>I take a pragmatic approach to software: form follows functions.
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: To me, it is more important to have a highly reliable, fast, efficient,
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: enduring, and simple DVCS than one that looks pretty.</p>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <p>On the other hand, if you have patches that improve the apparance
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: of Fossil without seriously compromising its reliablity, performance,
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: an maintainability, I will be happy to accept them.  Fossil is
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: self-hosting.  Write to the maintainers for a password that will let
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: you push to the main fossil repository.</p>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: </blockquote>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <b>It would be useful to have a separate application that
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: keeps the bug-tracking database in a versioned filed. That file can
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: then be pushed and pulled along with the rest repository.</b>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <blockquote>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <p>This addressed in the opening paragraphs of
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: the <a href="bugtheory.wiki">Bug-Tracking In Fossil</a> document.
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: </blockquote>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <b>Fossil is already the name of a plan9 versioned
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: append-only filesystem.</b>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <blockquote>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: I did not know that.  Perhaps they choose the name for the same reason that
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: I did: because a repository with immutable artifacts preserves
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: and excellent fossil record of a long-running project.
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: </blockquote>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <b>The idea of storing a repository in a binary blob like an
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: SQLite database terrifies me.</b>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <blockquote>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: The use of SQLite to store the database is likely more stable and secure
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: than any other approach, due to the fact that SQLite is transactional.
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: Fossil also implements several internal
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <a href="selfcheck.wiki">self-checks</a> to insure that no information
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: is every lost.  And, indeed, in over a year of operation, there have been
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: no reports of data loss due to a Fossil malfunction.
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: </blockquote>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <b>I am dubious of the benefits of including wikis and bug trackers
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: directly in the VCS - either they are under-featured compared to full
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: software like Trac, or the VCS is massively bloated compared to
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: Subversion or Bazaar.</b>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <blockquote>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <p>I have no doubt that Trac has many features that fossil lacks.  But that
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: is not the point.  Fossil has several key features that Trac lacks and that
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: the primary fossil author cannot live without:  most notably the fact that
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: fossil supports disconnected operation.</p>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: <p>As for bloat:  Fossil is a single fully self-contained executable.
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: You do not need any external packages in order to run fossil.  You do not
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: need diff, patch, merge, cvs, svn, rcs, python, perl, tcl, sqlite, or anything
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: else in order to run fossil.  Fossil runs just fine in a chroot jail all
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: by itself.  And the self-contained executable is much less than 1MB in size.
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: Fossil is the very opposite of bloat.</p>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: </blockquote>
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: 
cbc8983685 2008-10-06       drh: </nowiki>