How best to use externals for handling sensitive vendor library?

Hi

We develop a Visual C++ project that, in one project configuration, uses a small vendor library that is subject to export control. This means that we can't let all developers on the project see that library. Everyone can build with some build configurations but only some developers can build with that sensitive configuration.

The project source code is stored in a dedicated svn repository. We have chosen not to store the vendor library with our source code because we don't want the hassle of maintaining svn permissions for the library across trunk and branches. So we just instruct the developers who need the library to unzip the library straight into the working copy. This is inelegant and I am looking for a better solution.

I guess the obvious solution is to use a 'svn external' to retrieve the vendor library from another svn repo or project. We can then tighten the permissions on the vendor library svn project. But what would happen to developers of the main project if they couldn't access the vendor library? Would the external reference fail gracefully or would the checkout fail?

I would be grateful for suggestions on how best to handle this problem.

Best regards

David
Received on 2014-03-24 10:26:03 CET