Sourceforge downtime -- discussion of alternatives

I'd recommend switching to github:
I strongly second the idea of switching to Git - and if so, then indeed why not Github. Incidentally, a quick search of the site suggests the source code of Mafia itself is already is on Github - there appear to be three separate mirrors of the official SVN repository, including one which was last updated just before the Sourceforge outage.

On the other hand, should you decide to stay with Subversion I would suggest moving away from Sourceforge anyway. It has been getting more and more commercial for quite a while, that's nothing new - but incorporating adware into installers they host without knowledge or consent of developers is downright sleazy.

PS. If we stick with SVN, please update the bundled svnkit. For one thing, repositories checked out with it are not compatible any more with command-line tools available on most modern systems - meaning the only really feasible way of recovering from repository errors (which unfortunately do occur from time to time) is to delete the corrupted repo and check it out again.
 

heeheehee

Developer
Staff member
PS. If we stick with SVN, please update the bundled svnkit. For one thing, repositories checked out with it are not compatible any more with command-line tools available on most modern systems - meaning the only really feasible way of recovering from repository errors (which unfortunately do occur from time to time) is to delete the corrupted repo and check it out again.

This actually isn't an option. "Latest SVNKit supports Subversion 1.7.4."

edit: Then again, the readme seems to differ...
 
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matt.chugg

Moderator
Sorry, life has got in the way of KoL and Kolmafia again. I play occasionally, but not like I used to

Guess this thread explains this in the RSS update

Code:
175002 (RA layer request failed) OPTIONS of 'http://svn.code.sf.net/p/kolmafia/code': could not connect to server (http://svn.code.sf.net)

I use my own DB which is updated from subversion, it's basically just not receiving updates because of SF downtime, so the RSS feed is still live, and the SVN search is still live, but not up to date.

I'll leave the current cron job in place, so when it comes back on-line everything should just work again,

If you move to somewhere else but stick to subversion I can update the script with the new endpoint, if you move to github, this will be no longer necesary as you should be able to get a feed of commits straigt from github. (eg: https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/commits/master.atom )
 

Theraze

Active member
Just be warned that SVN-over-git will give your users incorrect lack-of-notification about updates, and you WILL get reports of bugs which you fixed weeks or months ago. It's a continual issue with Guide, and the only way to fix it temporarily is for the user to delete the script and reinstall it again.
 

Zen00

Member
Still easier than trying to figure out the right place to put all the files by hand, for the less experienced with file structures, so I'm glad I got it there at least.
 
It has been nearly a week, and bugs are accumulating. SF's lack of comms is not very reassuring. Any thoughts on deadlines and other criteria that would force taking alternative action, even if only temporary?
 

Winterbay

Active member
My five cents: As a person who likes coding but has never had to use any kind of version-system apart from the SVN I use for my scripts I think that I would prefer to not have to learn GIT. I tried once (setting it up to modify an opensource android app) and I could not for the life of me figure out how to do it. But if someone made a guide like the one for SVN on the KoL-wiki I might still be able to but from my PoV SVN is a lot easier to use than GIT :)
 

fronobulax

Developer
Staff member
It has been nearly a week, and bugs are accumulating. SF's lack of comms is not very reassuring. Any thoughts on deadlines and other criteria that would force taking alternative action, even if only temporary?

SourceForge posted an official statement that I understood to mean source code repositories would return to availability on Wednesday July 22. That's today. I can't find the original but it was part of a long post that laid out the recovery plan and explicitly said the kinds of things developers need to commit were not going to be the first capabilities restored.

As for temporary solutions, several folks have made local builds from patches and made those available in an ad-hoc fashion so poke around for a link.
 

heeheehee

Developer
Staff member
My five cents: As a person who likes coding but has never had to use any kind of version-system apart from the SVN I use for my scripts I think that I would prefer to not have to learn GIT. I tried once (setting it up to modify an opensource android app) and I could not for the life of me figure out how to do it. But if someone made a guide like the one for SVN on the KoL-wiki I might still be able to but from my PoV SVN is a lot easier to use than GIT :)

Highly simplified view of git: you have a local repository that you may want to keep synchronized with a remote repository.

To check out a remote repository (svn checkout): git checkout <uri>
To add a file to be under version control (svn add): git add <path>
To commit a change, locally (no svn equivalent!): git commit -a
To push local commits to the remote repositories (svn commit): git push
To update the local repository (svn update): git pull

If all you're doing is just updating files, git really isn't all that complicated.

SourceForge posted an official statement that I understood to mean source code repositories would return to availability on Wednesday July 22. That's today. I can't find the original but it was part of a long post that laid out the recovery plan and explicitly said the kinds of things developers need to commit were not going to be the first capabilities restored.
Here, it says:
We’ll be bringing services back online as the validation of backing data is completed, and anticipate bringing additional services online through mid-week.
...

We’re holding SCM service restoration for last, and will be prioritizing Git service to be first within that process based on its fast verification path. Holding SCM restoration for last allows us to take a cautious approach and to free our staff to interact with developers if any concerns exist when the service is re-enabled.
To be honest, I'm surprised that kolmafia.sourceforge.net is still down, when they've claimed to have restored the "project web service".


As for temporary solutions, several folks have made local builds from patches and made those available in an ad-hoc fashion so poke around for a link.

I woke up to find this post.
 

Veracity

Developer
Staff member
SourceForge posted an official statement that I understood to mean source code repositories would return to availability on Wednesday July 22.
Sourceforge said:
We’ll be bringing services back online as the validation of backing data is completed, and anticipate bringing additional services online through mid-week.
As you can see, Sourceforge didn't actually give us a date. I agree that "mid-week" sounds like "Wednesday", but they certainly didn't commit to that day - or any specific time on that day. They "anticipate" (expect that they will) "bringing additional services online" (fix things bit by bit) "though mid-week" (until they are done, which they hope will be "mid-week" - and we all know just how good IT schedule estimates are).
 

Winterbay

Active member
Highly simplified view of git: you have a local repository that you may want to keep synchronized with a remote repository.

To check out a remote repository (svn checkout): git checkout <uri>
To add a file to be under version control (svn add): git add <path>
To commit a change, locally (no svn equivalent!): git commit -a
To push local commits to the remote repositories (svn commit): git push
To update the local repository (svn update): git pull

If all you're doing is just updating files, git really isn't all that complicated.

Thanks. Those commands are great if you run a command line interface and whatnot, but I'm very Windows-bound and doesn't really like the command line (I guess I could learn for this context, I mean I did start out with DOS/Win3.11). The beauty of the SVN-setup I have is that I can do my edits in whatever editor I want (notepad++ generally) and then just rightclick the folder and pick SVN Commit from the context menu, add a message and off it goes.
ALso, when I tried to get GIT to work previously I installed the GITHub GUI-client and found out that it apparently did not actually contain GIT. That was very confusing for me.
I think I uninstalled everything after a while in pure frustration :)
 

Darzil

Developer
Latest : #SourceForge mailing list services online. Work continues 24x7 on file upload, project web, SCM services. Next full update today (7/22).
 

heeheehee

Developer
Staff member
In any event, their latest blog post:
  • SourceForge Allura Git service – offline, filesystem checks complete, all project data restored, data validation (repository presence check 100%, repository data presence check 100%, ‘git fsck’ of 10% representative from non-empty repositories 100%). Git validation was aided by its feature set. Final data validation pending and ETA 7/22 for resumption of service.
  • SourceForge Allura Mercurial (Hg) service – offline, filesystem checks complete, all project data restored. Data validation (repository presence check, repository data presence check, and repository validation to occur and ETA 7/23 for service resumption.
  • SourceForge Allura Subversion (SVN) service – offline, filesystem checks complete, data restoration at 50%. Restoration priority after Git and Hg services. ETA TBD, Future update will provide ETA.
It seems like it'll probably be back online tomorrow or day after.
 

heeheehee

Developer
Staff member
Well, git services were restored yesterday. My hope was that it wouldn't take more than another day or two after that to get SVN back up and running, although maybe I was overly optimistic.
 

Fluxxdog

Active member
ALso, when I tried to get GIT to work previously I installed the GITHub GUI-client and found out that it apparently did not actually contain GIT. That was very confusing for me.
It is for a lot of people. It seems the Github clients are designed to work with Github, not git in general.

Most IDEs (and apparently Notepad++! I'll have to check that out) have plugins for using git, as well as the actual git tools themselves.

If you want to play around with actual git, checkout (not the command) git-scm.com
 
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