darcs hub future

[Simon Michael]

On 11/5/18 2:01 AM, Ben Franksen wrote:
> Am 01.11.18 um 02:11 schrieb Francesco Ariis:
>> On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 08:17:03PM +0000, Malcolm Wallace via Libraries wrote:
>>> Since darcs.haskell.org closed, it has been difficult to publish updates.
>> As Vanessa suggested, darcshub is a very good option.
> Darcs developer here. It is enouraging to see that not everyone has
> given up on Darcs.
>
> I agree that hub.darcs.net is probably the most suitable place to host a
> Darcs repo nowadays. (It has a few limitations which I hope will be
> lifted at some point.)


Darcs hub maintainer here. I'm glad some folks, including haskell 
developers, are still finding this useful.

Darcs (David's Advanced Revision Control System) was once a flagship 
Haskell project and many of us still have affection for it.

Darcs hub (http://hub.darcs.net) is a github-like hosting site for darcs 
users, running since 2012. It is the successor to the earlier 
darcs-hosting sites patch-tag.com and darcsden.com. It currently has 
2800 repos, public and private, and 1400 user accounts. If you try it 
and want to push/pull via ssh, you'll need to follow the "How do I 
connect with ssh?" FAQ entry on the front page.

Unfortunately for a while now I have been able to give it only essential 
maintenance and support time. I currently don't have much idea what's 
happening on darcs hub, except when I hear about problems from users or 
the hosting provider (Linode).

This works ok, but I periodically wonder

- how much need there is for this site to continue

- if worthwhile funding could be raised for it

- how long I should continue hosting it in "free time", unable to 
improve things much, and on call for unpredictable urgent data 
loss/compromise/legal compliance work

- if I were to stop, whether handoff to a new owner would end up 
successful, or if I should just wind it down and let others do what they 
will

Darcs hub is humming along fine. I'm just taking the opportunity to put 
out some thoughts, and would like to hear yours...

Best!
-Simon