patch series does not make VCS obsolete (was: Introductory mail)

[martin f krafft]

also sprach Manoj Srivastava <srivasta at acm.org> [2008.10.01.0302 +0200]:
>         Only if you like working with patch series, and prefer to lose
>  all the information that the original VCS contained. I prefer to see
>  the whole history, not just a snapshot, when I am joining a development
>  effort. 

Manoj, please stop seeing things black and white. By providing
a patch series in the source package, you are not "losing all the
information that the original VCS contained", as the original VCS
will still be around and will serve up all the history to those who
want it.

All that's happening is that the changes between upstream and what
is packaged for Debian aren't merged and dumped into one, gigantic,
monolithic diff, from which it's not exactly easy to extract single
features. Instead, separate features are kept in separate patches,
and a series file tells anyone, not just quilt, in what order the
patches should be applied.

This

  - makes it a lot easier for everyone to extract features from the
    source package;
  - still allows people to create monolithic patches over the whole source
    package, because "debian/rules patch" will prepare the source
    tree accordingly, and the v3 quilt format will even make that
    unnecessary;
  - still allows you to keep using your treasured VCS
  - still allows everyone to inspect the history in your VCS, or use
    it instead of the source package.

-- 
 .''`.   martin f. krafft <madduck at debian.org>
: :'  :  proud Debian developer, author, administrator, and user
`. `'`   http://people.debian.org/~madduck - http://debiansystem.info
  `-  Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems
 
it's practically impossible to look at a penguin and feel angry.
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