feature proposal: svn:maxrevs

In order to satisfy the somewhat dubious requirement for svn obliterate, and
some other issues for large binary resources recently discussed on the list,
I propose a new svn property and behavior: svn:maxrevs

Setting svn:maxrev = n (where n > 0) on a resource would indicate to svn that
only the last n revisions of this resource should be retained. Seemingly
simple, this would resolve potentially excessive disk usage for large streamy
binaries which don't diff efficiently, and for which history isn't required
or important.

While simple in concept, such a system may have extremely weird consequences
for copies & so on, which I am too stupid to comprehend. This proposal is
intended in part to rectify that ;)

I am somewhat torn myself on wether this is a good idea or not, as svn is not
meant to be an all-purpose content-management system in the first place.
That being said, there is a large need for software projects to be able to
live alongside large binary dependencies (cutscenes, art, large gobs of
random data). Indeed, this functionality is missing from cvs as well (at
least automatically, i know about svnadmin -o).

I look forward to hearing what dev@ have to say.

Regards,

-- 
McClain Looney
LoonSoft LLC
m@loonsoft.com
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