Promoting the use of Mercurial; was: Re: gnome dvcs survey results

[Gabor Grothendieck]

On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 1:35 AM, Gabor Grothendieck
<ggrothendieck at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 5:42 PM, Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_bab at web.de> wrote:
>> Am Montag 05 Januar 2009 20:46:08 schrieb Neal Becker:
>>> http://blogs.gnome.org/newren/2009/01/03/gnome-dvcs-survey-results/
>>
>> This somehow bothers me, since it shows that some people use momentum as main
>> argument for switching to git.
>
> The size and activity of the community results in a network effect which is
> a certainly key consideration for many.
>
> Areas that might tip the balance in favor of hg are Windows support
> with TortoiseHg
> and potentially ease of installation and catering to simple usage.
>
> Coordination of releases of Hg and TortoiseHg might help on the Windows front.
>

One further comment. I think the niche that Hg could dominate is Windows
subversion users.  Subversion users already mostly use TortoiseSVN and
would be more receptive to TortoiseHg than other offerings.  Also the other
dvcs's are not really credible Windows products.  To capture this segment
Hg likely needs to become a capable svn client in a transparent way allowing
graceful switching to Hg and tansparent concurrent use of Hg and Svn.  I
know there is already some functionality in this area but am not sure what
remaining could be done.