killer feature: use git to facilitate instant revisions

[holtzermann17]

I'm going to be pretty adamant about this issue (though I don't know if I'll get any arguments against it from anyone!).

• Articles should be instantly editable by anyone
• But we should maintain our ownership model

How will this work? I think: any edit should go into a "hotfix" branch for the current article, unless the person who does the edit explicitly indicates that they want to create a fork.

Implication: Each article is a git repository.

• Tool to splice them together: repo

Depends on: #68

[dginev]

Does that mean you'll have to align Github groups with Drupal groups?

[holtzermann17]

So, I'm thinking of git integration, not Github.

[dginev]

Then who is managing the git users (and their permissions)? Your own git server?

[holtzermann17]

I'm definitely thinking "own git server". Basically using Planetary to make a free/libre/open Github clone. Maybe a lot of work and a bad idea, but I think there might be some demand for it in the FLOSS world.

• http://repo.or.cz/ - a nice simple web git hosting service that we could use as an alternate frontend
• http://repo.or.cz/h/mob.html - their interesting experiment
• http://campus.ftacademy.org/community/mod/file/download.php?file_guid=19176 - some musings from me & others in the Free Technology Guild...

Breaking this down into pieces, our prototype would consist of: (1) A sophisticated issue, task, and activity tracker (2) ... that integrates with personal data like interests and resumes (3) ... that cross-references with status updates and RSS/Atom feeds (4) ... and integrates these into a large shared community-created knowledge base on technology issues

[dginev]

Well if you're just aiming for conveniently having versioned content, you don't have to worry about being a Github "clone" :) Also, given we had started with the idea of having an SVN server for versioning the Planetary content at the beginning, using Git instead is perfectly viable. So I'm all for it in principle.

But I really don't want to be the person that synchronizes Git and Drupal permissions, that ought to be a pain. You would run into the same problem with SVN of course, the moment you decide to allow any command-line editing... Though given the number of GUI inputs you have in PlanetMath, maybe the command-line workflow won't be viable anyway?

In any case, this enhancement will be a tricky bit of work.

[holtzermann17]

Well if you're just aiming for conveniently having versioned content, you don't have to worry about being a Github "clone"

Indeed.

But I really don't want to be the person that synchronizes Git and Drupal permissions, that ought to be a pain.

Indeed, I'll have to think some more about it...

[holtzermann17]

The FTG goals described in my comment above are also relevant to the "FTG basic platform" which I mention in this issue on the PlanetMath tracker: holtzermann17/planetmath-docs#22

[holtzermann17]

Some related discussion in the Planetmath tracker: holtzermann17/planetmath-docs#66