SVN 1.10 AuthZ file parsing too strict?!

Honored committers (and the rest of us):

It's come to my attention that if a group is defined in an AuthZ
file without an associated account that SVN is, as of 1.10, generating
an error and failing to allow the use of that AuthZ file.

Example:

    [groups]
    goodGroup = acct1
    goodGroup2 = acct1, acct2
    badGroup =

    [repoName:/someplace]
    @badGroup = rw

    svnauthz: E220003: Error while parsing authz file: ...
    svnauthz: E220003: Access entry refers to undefined group ...

My thoughts:

1. From a compatibility standpoint it really should be a Warning,
not an Error. If there's no accounts then certainly it can have
no impact on the security of the repository/ies.

2. From a usability standpoint it really should simply be supported.
The AuthZ file is a representation of a team structure. There are
times when teams will get reduced headcount down to zero and then
back up again. To deal with that use case with SVN 1.10 means
either:

a) stripping out all references to the team and losing all of the
   places where that team requires access

b) configuring a dummy account for the team and hoping that the
   account will never be created

c) leaving the team around and fixing SVN to allow an empty team

My preference would be first 2c and, if not, then 1. But that's
me.

Not sure about the history of why this change was made? I'd like
to better understand.

Cheers.

Doug

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