Re: [gentoo-dev] [git migration] The problem of ChangeLog generation

[Ciaran McCreesh <ciaran.mccreesh@googlemail.com>]

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On Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:58:13 +0200
Angelo Arrifano <miknix@gentoo.org> wrote:
> With my experience in Gentoo-embedded I can also present a problem
> where branching is extremely useful:
> 1) Package foobar-1.2 is in the tree and keyworded only for ~x86
> ~amd64. 2) Some dev at -embedded decides that package is useful and
> applies his traditional cross-compile hackery.
> 3) The usual route would be to open a shi*load of bugs, wait a
> cr*pload of time for the maintainer response and if the weather feels
> like it, there is authorization to commit. Then there is also need to
> retest for already keyworded arches so we know we don't break others.
> 
> 3*) With git, one would just branch (lets call it embedded branch) the
> package. Apply the patches there and let people using embedded
> profiles to emerge from that branch instead of master.
> Benefits? I think they are pretty obvious - people can start putting
> quick patches in the tree for specific arches while not breaking
> others.

And then you have to keep merging master into your embedded branch
every few hours to keep up. It's a waste of time. Instead, you should
just put a modified foobar-1.2 in your own repository and rely upon the
package manager's extensive and clean handling of multiple repositories
to avoid having to do any merging yourself.

There are uses for merges, but working around the shortcomings in a
package manager shouldn't be one of them. Migrating to Git should be
about addressing problems with CVS, not about addressing problems with
Portage.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh

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