[RFC] Changing import autoprops default to --no-autoprops

The Subversion way of doing things always has been not to perform
destructive operations on data unless explicitly told to do so.

Currently, 'import' automatically applies autoprops. I think this is
wrong, because when applying the autoprops transforms on import
automatically, the user unknowingly destroys the original data
(assuming he/she removes the imported tree after importing).

The only way for an unknowing user to notice this behaviour (at import
time) is when there's a file in the import with inconsistent
line-endings.

Import supports both the --autoprops and --no-autoprops flags. I
propose import to ignore the default config file setting (unless we
make an import specific one) and solely depend on the --(no-)autoprops
commandline switches.
In case the non-autoprops import is not what the user wanted, he can
simply export the import, delete the one in the repos and try again.
The other way around is not possible (ie the one where the first
import applies autoprops...)

This is a hot issue on users@ at the moment, people arguing that
Subversion isn't consistent in its philosophy.

I know this doesn't abide by the backward compat changes, but, well,
since we're not exactly strict with our own philosophy here, I'll
argue the current behaviour is a bug.

Comments?

bye,

Erik.

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Received on Sat Mar 3 19:24:06 2007