Re: Enhancing 3.0 (git) source package format

[Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>]

Tollef Fog Heen <tfheen@err.no> writes:

> ]] Goswin von Brederlow 
> | My feeling is that 3.0 (git) format adds bloat to the source packages
> | that hardly anyone ever uses, makes it that much harder for any
> | non-git user to edit the source and is of little extra value when the
> | maintainers git is month or years further along.
>
> Even if the upstream VCS has moved on, you save a bit of bandwidth by
> having something that comes with half the history, even if you don't
> have all of it.

Weigh that against the bandwidth spend for mirrors and for people that
do not need or want the history and the extra cost in terms of needing
more CD/DVD images to contain a source snapshot. Also the cost for
snapshot.debian.org having to have the extra bloat for every single
version uploaded. For a worst case take linux-2.6 as example.

Also why would you download the source package in the first place if
what you really want is a git checkout. The extra bandwidth for a git
checkout would only be as much as the 3.0 (git) format would lack in
history.

For me a debian source package is a snapshot of a particular version
of the source that exactly coresponds to the binary packages build
from it. For history there is the changelog, old source packages on
snapshot.debian.org (soon again) and cvs/svn/hg/git/arch repositories.

My expectation is also that I can "apt-get source foo", edit some
files and debuild without having to learn a new tool and completly
foreign workflow. The various patch systems used with 1.0 packages
destroy that somewhat but 3.0 (quilt) restores that feature again. 3.0
(git) on the other hand goes in the wrong direction as it makes the
package even more special.


But in the end it comes down to taste I guess. Do you want to force
people to use git or are you friendly to those that don't use it?
So I will shut up now before we go around the circle again.

MfG
        Goswin