Re: Making a file in the working directory not be managed by Subversion any more

On Mon, 2006-08-21 at 17:21 +0200, Ryan Schmidt wrote:

> The second is what has often been called "svnadmin obliterate". There
> is this feature request:
>
> http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=516
>
> I understand that this is extremely difficult, not just to implement,
> since Subversion is specifically designed to retain all history, so
> making it suddenly forget some of that is counter to its very nature,
> but also difficult to define what exactly is meant. Are we
> obliterating a single item in the repository at a single revision? Or
> all revisions of this item throughout time?

Assume that there is something in the repository that could make you
or your company the target of a very expensive lawsuit if anyone is
ever able to retrieve it and read it. In the US at least that doesn't
take very much, so it is likely to be a common problem.

> What if it moved or was
> renamed? What if it was copied? Are the copies removed too? Even if
> they've subsequently changed substantially or completely? It's a
> complicated issue, which is why it's not done yet. In the mean time,
> you have the "svnadmin dump" / "svndumpfilter" / "svnadmin load"
> alternative, which is deliberately cumbersome because as mentioned
> Subversion's goal is to retain all history.

I agree that it should be an admin-only operation but making it
difficult is just short-sighted. Everyone is going to accumulate
junk (or worse) eventually.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell@gmail.com
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