RFC: Exploded source repo layouts

[Doug Ledford]

On Wed, 2008-07-23 at 09:43 +0200, Hans de Goede wrote:
> Doug Ledford wrote:
> > I've been working on getting this set up and functional.

When you say things like:
> <lots of complicated hacks and workarounds deleted>

and:
> the current nice and simple setup we have.

it really just points out a simple misconception.  If you think our CVS
setup is "simple", then you've never spent much time look at
Makefile.common, and you've certainly never seen any of the magic goo
Cristian Gafton setup in the CVS server to make it all happen the way it
does.  What I'm talking about here is really no more complicated than
our CVS setup, it's simply based on a different set of rules.  If I
weren't discussing this out in the open, and instead just showed up with
a little HowTo and a completed project, it certainly would not seem any
more complex than our CVS setup.

> So Far I've been quiet on this, sort of hoping it would go away by itself, but 
> as a contributor with quite a few packages let me say that I'm deeply worried 
> about this whole distributed VCS / exploded source idea floating around.
> 
> It seems there are a few people who are a big fan of this, and about as much 
> active opponents. I have no problems with adding the possibility to use a 
> distributed VCS with exploded trees to the mix of ways to maintain and build 
> packages, but this should not replace the current nice and simple setup we have.
> 
> First of all it does NOT match the way rpm was designed at all, rpm is about 
> pristine sources with _separate_ patches, but most importantly, this is rather 
> complicated making things unnecessary hard for people who don't want to do the 
> stuff some of the distributed VCS proponents want to do. This worries me, I'm 
> esp. worried that the barrier of entry to becoming a Fedora packager will be 
> raised significantly.
> 
> Also I even fail to see the claimed advantages in using a distributed VCS at 
> all, isn't our mantra upstream upstream upstream, well if this mantra is 
> properly followed and upstream is undergoing active development then most of 
> the time the pristine sources should be fine without any patches at all, since 
> all patches are integrated upstream in a timely manner. Also if someone wants 
> to do so much work on the upstrewam sources, then he/she should just become an 
> upstream developer. Really getting upstream cvs/svn/whatever access isn't that 
> hard, then one can directly commit one's changes in to upstreams VCS.

As far as the rest of your email goes Hans, I won't do what you hope
for.  I won't drop the issue without finding out whether I'm right or
wrong that an exploded source repo carries with it significant benefits
in terms of work flow, collaboration with upstream, source hosting and
management, etc.  If I'm wrong, then you have nothing to be afraid of
anyway as the whole idea will die away, and if I'm right, then it
deserves to be a supported method of doing things.

-- 
Doug Ledford <dledford at redhat.com>
              GPG KeyID: CFBFF194
              http://people.redhat.com/dledford

Infiniband specific RPMs available at
              http://people.redhat.com/dledford/Infiniband

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