Re: Would branching across repositories be theoretically possible?

On 01.01.2013 19:53, Johan Corveleyn wrote:
> A more flexible svnsync might still be interesting, because it makes
> you less dependent on the source repo. If that source repo vanishes,
> you still have the complete history of the part you synced (for
> instance, with the foreign cp approach, maybe 'svn log' will want to
> follow the history accross the copy boundary -- so it needs to be able
> to handle connectivity problems to the source repo, and if the source
> repo vanishes you can't see those log entries anymore ever).

Interesting point ... however, the idea of foreign branches (as
described in this thread) stems from the wish to /not/ depend on
connectivity to another repository. Externals require that, and that's
one of the reasons why I hate them. I already mentioned one of the
reasons why breaking such live connectivity requirements (for *every*
client!) is a good thing: it creates room for creating branches and
merging from a different VCS.

Mirroring a foreign repo is a completely different kettle of fish; but
just to point out that there's a middle ground: you could trigger the
foreign merge for every commit in the upstream repo (say, hanging it off
of svnpubsub) and thus maintain a rev-by-rev mirror, including log
messages, in your vendor branch.

> I guess it depends on the use case. With the "flexible svnsync" you're
> actually doing exactly that ... an svnsync, so you have a full
> independent copy of the part you wanted. With the "remote cp" your
> repo remains coupled with the source repo.

As I said, I don't see a compelling reason for it staying coupled. If
the upstream repo goes away, it breaks your svnsync scenario as well.
That said, there are certainly valid reasons for mirroring instead of
branching. The question is, does mirroring into a (subtree of an)
existing repository carry enough benefit (compared to a pure mirror and
a "local" vendor branch) to justify the hassle of integrating such a
thing into the filesystem model? I suspect not.

-- Brane

-- 
Branko Čibej
Director of Subversion | WANdisco | www.wandisco.com