On Fri, Jul 28, 2000 at 08:42:54AM -0400, Jonathan S. Shapiro wrote:
> [I know this isn't the DCMS list, but the descriptions of rationale may be
> of use hear.]
>
> > #2 - Granularity of ACL's
> >
> > I understand that their are properties that can control
> > access for files and directories. But what about
> > branches, or tags???
>
> Again speaking for DCMS, we're actually taking the view that there
> *shouldn't* be access control on files or directories. We do it only on
> branch and project (we may extend this to branch versions, but that creates
> merge problems). If you have access to the branch you should have access to
> the contents referenced by that branch.
Hmm. I guess you could achieve equivalent results using that method but
it seems a little less intuitive to me.
While I know commercial development practices arent really relevent for
open source folks Ill give you an example where having both control of
branches and files/dirs is of benefit.
At a previous job we had contracted out all of our "learning products"
and "localization". Due to a legacy architecture these files were
spread all over the tree. We didnt want the contractors to have
access to all the source code, but we did want them to use the
version control system so their updates would appear in our daily
builds. In this situation having the ability to create a different
class of users that can read all the directories in the tree, but
only have read/write access to the files they needed is quite
valuable. Note this couldnt have been accomplished (at least not
easily) using different branches for different folks.
In general my philosophy on tools is to provide as many orthogonal
features and extensions as possible, then let the user decide best
how to utilize them. I guess its sort of making a fancy swiss army
knife with lots of options and letting the user determine which
subtool/feature is appropriate for thier specific/custom task.
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John Cavanaugh Agilent Technologies
R&D Program Manager 1400 Fountaingrove Pkwy
CAD Data Store Santa Rosa, CA 95403-1799
Email: cavanaug@soco.agilent.com Phone: 707-577-4780
707-577-3948 (Fax)
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They can because they think they can.
-- Virgil
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Received on Sat Oct 21 14:36:06 2006