On the GNOME Desktop Development List, there's a 'debate' raging about the possibility of switching GNOME projects from Subversion over to some distributed source code management system. An objection which keeps coming up is:
«people keep saying DSCMs are great because they allow you to branch easily, but I don't want to that anyway - if I branch then I'll have the headache of merging»
The underlying assumption here is that just because merging has historically been a pain using tools like CVS and Subversion, it will also be a pain with the new breed of distributed tools.
If you are as-yet-unconvinced, do youself a favour and try one of these tools. Once you experience how easy it is to create a feature branch but still keep your branch current with mainline developments you'll never want to go back. This stuff is addictive.
