Target audience:
 * all alioth users

Subject: Alioth: the future of subversion/cvs/bzr/darcs/hg repositories

Dear users of alioth,

the participants of the Alioth Sprint 2017 [1] discussed and worked on the future of the services currently hosted on the alioth host.
Part of this discussion was the future of the hosting of version control repositories, that are not supported by the new development platform (i.e.: everything but git).
The participants of the Sprint analyzed the usage of the other version control systems and came to the conclusion [2], that the usage level probably does not justify the maintenance of these services on Debian infrastructure.

Thus there is currently no plan to continue hosting non-git repositories within the Debian infrastructure.
Of course, whoever is willing to provide this kind of service on her/his own, may feel free to do so.

# Timeline
 * ????: write access to subversion/cvs/bzr/darcs/hg repositories on alioth is disabled
 * ????: alioth is shut down; subversion/cvs/bzr/darcs/hg repositories are unavailable

Please migrate your subversion/cvs/bzr/darcs/hg repositories either to a git repository (e.g. hosted on the new development platform) or move it to a new home.

Cheers,
the people from Alioth Sprint 2017

[1] https://wiki.debian.org/Sprints/2017/Alioth
[2] https://wiki.debian.org/Sprints/2017/Alioth/MeetingMinutes/VCS


comment:
a blunt announcement might upset people who are happy with their current
VCS!  We shouldn't tell people what VCS to use.

Instead I would emphasise the point that:  the purpose of Alioth/Salsa
is a platform for collaboration;  the vast majority contributors are
using Git, so the platform is based on that VCS.  Projects/teams are
*encouraged* to use Git;  or are free to choose another VCS, but that
is outside the scope of Salsa to host it then.