Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

First, those are bolt-ons and I don’t actually want them tied to the source code management system.

Second, for my repos, I use markdown directly in the repo instead of a wiki. This works better for me because the version history is in the repo and for wikis the author is important context for the value of the information.

Third, I build my website using an ssg that builds off my repo. Typically this is Jekyll scripts that build out fine on GitHub pages or gitlab pages or whatever. And I can move to any host I want. I don’t want to couple my project’s web site to my source code host.

These are “solved” features as far as I’m concerned and these actually bring negative value for me. I don’t want to worry about what kind of forum functionality my scm provides. And I certainly don’t care about pushing my forum from one server to another.



> First, those are bolt-ons and I don’t actually want them tied to the source code management system.

Anecdote: when Richard first proposed the /chat feature in fossil i was highly skeptical about its utility but (as the fossil project's "JS guy") wrote it anyway. Now, almost 3 years later, we've been using chat 24/7 across multiple fossil-hosted projects and can't imagine doing without it. The majority of the sqlite project's coordination happens via fossil's /chat.

Yes, it was bolted on, but it's also become indispensable for us as a feature.


The mistake is assuming that fossil is simply a source code management system, it is not. Fossil is closer to a collaboration system around source code.

If you can live your life without it, good. But if I want to use a GUI with links instead of markdown files in a repo from which I can't click to go to the next article, an ssg and a dependency on Github/Gitlab/whatever host I store my code in, and other tools, then fossil does it all for me right from a single binary that will be the same for everyone.


The article title is git vs fossil. So it’s not just my mistake.

Based on the popularity of the projects, it seems the mistake of the fossil team is that they think they are competing with git.

I look forward to fossil supporting git and then I might consider using it.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: