Keeping Your GitHub Fork Up-To-Date

This is a quick tip: after forking a repository on GitHub sadly there is no button to easily fetch new commits from the original repository. So we have to do it manually. Luckily this is easy enough:

1. Add the original repository as a remote to your local clone:

$ git remote add openlink git://github.com/openlink/virtuoso-opensource.git

2. Now you can simply pull the changes from the original:

$ git checkout develop/6
$ git pull openlink develop/6

However, make sure you do not do a rebase pull with the pull as that would destroy any merges you did on your own fork.

3. Finally push them to your own fork:

$ git push origin develop/6

I am sure that for most git users this is trivial. I just wanted to clearly state that there is no difference when using GitHub. It does not provide us with any magic when it comes to fork updates.

Virtuoso Open-Source Moved to GitHub

Ever since 2006 OpenLink Software has provided its Open-Source version of Virtuoso (VOS), the high-performance SQL server with a powerful RDF/SPARQL data management layer on top.

So far the sources have been developed in an internal cvs repository which was published through the Virtuoso sourceforge pages.

As of March 21. OpenLink took the next step towards Open Development by moving to git as its version management system. The sources are now hosted in the VOS GitHub repository.

Like mentioned on the VOS git usage pages OpenLink now accepts GitHub pull requests and patches. Be sure to read the notes on git branching policy in VOS which are based on the git-flow approach by Vincent Driessen – which by the way is an interesting read independent of VOS.

Most importantly it is now a lot simpler to follow the development of Virtuoso Open-Source. Simply clone the git repository and switch to the appropriate develop branch:

$ git clone git://github.com/openlink/virtuoso-opensource.git
$ cd virtuoso-opensource
$ git checkout -t remotes/origin/develop/6

For details on the used branches see the already mentioned VOS git usage guide.

Refer to the VOS building instructions if the following is not enough for you:

$ ./autogen.sh
$ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local --with-layout=<LAYOUT>
$ make
$ make install

where <LAYOUT> is one of Gnu, Debian, Gentoo, Redhat, Freebsd, opt, Openlink. The latter two force the prefix.