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[Stefano Zacchiroli]

On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 03:42:46PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>         *Sigh*. You are missing context. And the point.

I was in fact missing some context, but still I think you don't see my
big picture.

>  c) Therefore, we need to additionally store the patch series generated
>     from git branches into yet another git branch (presumably not one
>     the patch series are generated from).
> 
>         Me, I hate c, and I think this is not something I am going to be
>  doing, even if that schema is popular.

In my vision, the patch series is just an interface for who, beside
the usual maintainer, have to interact with the package without having
to know the gory details of the user VCS or its branch layout. It is
not something to be used routinely: if I care enough about a package I
can take the time to learn the details of its maintenance. If I just
want to make a quick bugfix I don't.

Hence, I see no need of versioning the patch series. Having just the
last series, most likely in the Debian source package, would be
enough.

>         I have rarely seen people do ongoing development of my packages
>  (and I have _some_ experience here: I've had some 30+ packages in
>  Debian for nearly 13 years now).  Most people look at he unpacked
>  source, and send me a patch via mail, and I figure out where the patch
>  belongs (or whether the patch needs to be split up). That is fine by
>  me; you do not have to understand  topgit et al to contribute.

This does not prove that this is the ideal setting in which
work. Moreover, I'm not surprised: most of the Debian source packages
still patch everything in the main .diff.gz. I hope you agree that
clean .diff.gz (i.e., only touching debian/) + debian/patches/ has to
be preferred over the status quo.

The problem with the advent of DVCS, when they are used naively, is
that we will be back at the mess of .diff.gz, losing
debian/patches/. That is the problem we need to address.

Finally, nobody talked about "ongoing development", I'm thinking at
hit-and-run patches and NMU. I want those contributors to be able to
contribute as easily as possible, and I do think that patch series
would help them.

>         I'm OK with releasing a patch series; but will not take patches
>  to the patch series as contributions. Patches to patches are just
>  silly, in my opinion.

Agreed. In that scenario IMO the contribution can either be an extra
patch that apply somewhere in a patch series or a new version of an
old patch. No matter which of the 2, being able for the contributor to
distinguish the previously used patches is a plus.

Cheers.

-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli -*- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
I'm still an SGML person,this newfangled /\ All one has to do is hit the
XML stuff is so ... simplistic  -- Manoj \/ right keys at the right time
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