time to switch from CVS to Git, was: Missing mailings from commits

On 2/20/11, Dieter Kaiser <drdieterkaiser at web.de> wrote:

> Is there some work in progress, to solve the problem, that we do not get
> a mailing after a commit. Furthermore, I have observed that we have no
> entries on Sourceforge.net under the menu maxima-commits, too.
>
> At this time, I only commit changes for the German translation. But I
> hesitate to commit other work. There is no chance

>From what I can tell, CVS still functions as it is supposed to,
it's just that the emails are not generated.

But this really isn't very comforting. I think it's time to stop
using CVS and switch over to Git. This recent message
from an SF admin suggests that they aren't going to fix
the problem, and they are going to drop CVS anyway.
http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/sourceforge/ticket/11248
(See the comment at the end of the page.)

I know there are other systems we could use, other than Git,
but Git is the only one that has gotten any traction with the
Maxima developers, from what I can tell.

Can somebody figure out how to change over from CVS to Git
and explain the plan to us and then carry it out?
I'd like to carry over the entire CVS history including the
commit log, branches, and tags.
The explanation part has to include a Rosetta Stone to
translate CVS operations to Git. That should probably go
on a wiki or something to make it easier to find.

best

Robert Dodier