1GB SVN repo free from Perforce... and Git Sucks.

[Darian Miller 366]

A few blog posts online, one today on a pretty good offering from Perforce that I stumbled upon:  Helix TeamHub:  5-users with 1GB of space and your mix/match choice of Git, Mercurial, SVN repos for free.  Also comes with tickets, wikis, build artifact management, integrations.  The article comes with a slight rant on Git...

 

https://www.ideasawakened.com/post/subversion-isn-t-dead-get-a-1gb-repo-free-forever

 

I'm currently using Azure Devops which is pretty nice, but over the last few days the system was so slow that I started looking for alternatives and I found this one today.

[dummzeuch 1517]

This just got me wondering what you'd use such a repository for? There are many free hosting sites for open source projects, several still providing svn (SourceForge being the best known, but there are more). 5 users also does not sound like open source, so is it for commercial use? But in that case why would I not host the repository myself? We are a company with only 3 developers and host our own svn server on a Linux box and I never even thought of doing this any differently.

[David Heffernan 2353]

You have to maintain the Linux box. You have to maintain the svn server. If you have it hosted then somebody else does it all. 

[Uwe Raabe 2064]

If you are sharing the sources only inside your company, a local server is indeed a valid solution. I my case I am sharing sources with different customers, where a local server hosted in my intranet is almost out of scope (or comes with a lot of maintenance need). Therefore I prefer hosted servers that can be reached 24/7 from outside my place.

 

What makes it a bit complicated is the restriction that some customers require the data to reside in Germany or at least the EU (while the latter turns out to be a moving target these days). This is why I recently asked in the German sibling of this forum about setting up a Kallithea instance (I am still fond of Mercurial - despite the crowd either stays with SVN or moved to Git. Hey, I am doing Delphi! What did you expect? Running with the majority?). Unfortunately (or better thankfully) that died during the first steps going to get it running.

 

The only service I currently know of that satisfies all these requirements is Versionshelf by Shelf Cloud. Although, they don't offer a free account.

[Darian Miller 366]

7 hours ago, dummzeuch said:

This just got me wondering what you'd use such a repository for? There are many free hosting sites for open source projects, several still providing svn (SourceForge being the best known, but there are more). 5 users also does not sound like open source, so is it for commercial use? But in that case why would I not host the repository myself? We are a company with only 3 developers and host our own svn server on a Linux box and I never even thought of doing this any differently.

But it's not just a source repository.  It has 70+ third-party integrations and offers tickets, milestones, kanban, wikis, code reviews.  Other features like webdav file sharing, and multiple authentication enhancements like single sign-on, authorization by branch level.  For those that want to host it themselves, there is a on-premise edition available.

 

It's like a private GitHub repo with many features, including SVN support.  It allows a mix and match of SVN, Git, and Mercurial repositories so if you are working with multiple teams with different types of repos you can support it with one system.

 

If you only have 3 developers, and if your repo is under 1GB, then it might be something to look into so you get out of hosting it yourself and you get all the tools/integrations for free.  I tried it out last night and the Wiki markdown support was OK, but the pages were all presented in a single list - there didn't seem to be the concept of child pages like on Azure Devops so I don't think I'll use it.  Regardless, it's an interesting offering.

 

 

[Darian Miller 366]

5 hours ago, Uwe Raabe said:

If you are sharing the sources only inside your company, a local server is indeed a valid solution. I my case I am sharing sources with different customers, where a local server hosted in my intranet is almost out of scope (or comes with a lot of maintenance need). Therefore I prefer hosted servers that can be reached 24/7 from outside my place.

These is one of Helix Teamhub's targets - as you can grant access to third party users and limit access to specific repos/branches.

 

5 hours ago, Uwe Raabe said:

The only service I currently know of that satisfies all these requirements is Versionshelf by Shelf Cloud. Although, they don't offer a free account.

 

I hadn't seen Versionshelf before.  The multi-repo offering is definitely cool.  But a new user to their site would see that they had one blog post in 2017 and nothing since.  I'd assume the offering from a solid company like Perforce would be preferred, depending on number of users and budget.  It does help to make this Helix Teamhub an interesting offering.

 

 

[Uwe Raabe 2064]

VersionShelf servers are located in Germany, which is mandatory for some companies over here for enforcing the German data protection laws. I doubt that Perforce can guarantee that.

[dummzeuch 1517]

21 minutes ago, Darian Miller said:

If you only have 3 developers, and if your repo is under 1GB, then it might be something to look into so you get out of hosting it yourself and you get all the tools/integrations for free.

I'm certainly not going to host proprietary source code, support tickets etc. on the servers of a company situated abroad particularly not in the US of A. They are certain to give access to any so called security service who are known to share their information with any American company that might get an advantage from it. And that toddler in the White House doesn't exactly inspire confidence either.

 

No, I don't think that my programs are of particular interest to the CIA, but the company I work for is part of TÜV Rheinland, who in it's own words "is a global leader in independent inspection services,". They might come under scrutiny by the US government at any time for whatever reason.

 

I have to admit, that sounds paranoid coming from a Windows user. 😉 But: "Just that you are paranoid doesn't mean that they are not out to get you." (Whoever said that. Was it in Catch 22 ?)

[Attila Kovacs 631]

2 minutes ago, dummzeuch said:

company situated abroad particularly not in the US

 

I don't even bother reading a website without a proper imprint.

Edited November 23, 2019 by Attila Kovacs