Basie sounds good…but only SVN?

Started a comment on this post but it got a little long.

So, I follow Planet Python and have seen Greg Wilson’s posts on the Basie project.

Basie is a web-based software project forge that integrates revision control, issue tracking, mailing lists, wikis, status dashboards, and other tools that developers need to work effectively in teams.

Basie uses Django and jQuery among other technologies to make a leaner, meaner, multi-project “forge.”

I’ve read up a bit on Basie. Modern framework! jQuery! Multiple projects! Python! Only Subversion! What? Nearly every other* project tracking system out there (even Trac’s shoe-horned support) has support for alternate VCS’s: Git, Darcs, Bzr, Mercurial, etc. Are you serious? With countless hours invested, and probably 30+ people having worked on the code base, couldn’t “multi VCS” have been a requirement from the get-go? Granted, I’ve never tried it, but as Trac hacks, and Redmine, have proven, it can be done.

I think it’s great that we have a project tracking system that is based on modern web framework technologies, but I really think Basie is going to be at a disadvantage out of the gate because it does not support (granted, minority, but growing) VCS’s. I hope they are able to rectify this soon: I’d love to see Basie grow into a viable competitor to Redmine. Side note: I love Redmine, but a system in Python allows us to use our intellectual investment to contribute to our VCS; there is very little Ruby knowledge in our shop, so it’s harder to give back.

Something else that caught my eye on the Basie site:

Why Build Another Forge? Because none of the others meet our needs…. Redmine provides many of the features we want, but is still immature;

Can it be clarified when this was written? We currently run Redmine 0.8.6 (with 0.9 around the corner). It has been VERY stable, very able, and everything we need in a PTS. Other than using Python, is there any reason you did not simply choose to invest the time of 30+ people in an existing PTS instead of starting your own from scratch?

Again, this isn’t a rant, or to put down the project: I think it’s great, and I hope it gets traction in the PTS world. It’s just a design decision and your rationale of an “immature Redmine” that got me curious.

*”Every other” meaning “Every other that I am aware of.” I’m sure there are plenty of PTS’s that I’m not aware of.