[Pkg-bazaar-maint] Bug#577581: cvs2bzr: ERROR: Git output requires a default commit username

[Sergio Gelato]

Package: bzr-fastimport
Version: 0.9.0~bzr261
Severity: important

The problem:

$ bzr fast-export-from-cvs $CVSROOT/www ../www.fi
Executing cvs2bzr --dumpfile ../www.fi /path/to/CVSROOT/www ...
ERROR: Git output requires a default commit username
Export to ../www.fi exited with error code 1.

I was able to determine that in my case (and no doubt in most other cases)
cvs2bzr needs to be given an options file. In exporters/__init__.py I read:
        # TODO: pass a custom cvs2bzr-default.options file as soon as
        # cvs2bzr handles --options along with others.
        args = ["cvs2bzr", "--dumpfile", destination]

It is indeed annoying that cvs2bzr 2.3.0 doesn't let one specify
--dumpfile on the command line when an options file is given, but
since the dumpfile option (and the path to the CVS repository)
can be specified in the options file it should be a simple matter
of programming for fast-export-from-cvs to generate a suitable options
file. Especially since bzr fast-export-from-cvs doesn't work at all
without this.