Branch root identification -- a (really) simple proposal

I was thinking today about how Subversion offers all this flexibility in
terms of branch creation ("it's just a copy of a directory!") but sometimes
at the cost of some benefits you might otherwise get from a first-class
branch object.

Could a really, really simple solution help here? What if Subversion
recognized a directory property (say, "svn:branch-root") as an indicator
that that directory is the root of a branch (where by "branch", I mean "line
of development", which includes trunk and tags)? Benefits could include:

  * the fact that the property would naturally get set on copies of that
    directory, ensuring that branches of the directory are annotated as
    such.

  * helping the client discourage commits of subsets of a branch.

  * helping the client warn users about merging at anything less than
    the branch level.

  * helping tools like ViewVC and Trac identify branches, and add UI
    goodness accordingly.

It sounds too simple to be truly useful. What do others think?

-- 
C. Michael Pilato <cmpilato_at_collab.net>
CollabNet   <>   www.collab.net   <>   Distributed Development On Demand
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