Re: Small repository problems

[Peter Simons]

Hi Dustin,

 >> If ac_prog_xsltproc.m4 were to be renamed to m4/ac_prog_xsltproc.m4,
 >> then Gitweb would treat it like a new file; the history page
 >> wouldn't show the earlier commits anymore.
 >
 > Arguably, this is a bug in gitweb, although I think it makes sense
 > not to do copy/move detection in a web interface.

yes, I guess it's a question of how much load the webserver can take. It
would be nice if Gitweb would detect renames and show the complete
history of the object, but unfortunately it does not.


 >  1. merge 'maint' and 'master' together, just leaving everything at
 >     the top level

Yes, that would be possible.


 >  2. damn the historical torpedoes and 'git mv *.m4 m4'

The existence of an easily accessible, accurate change history is a
great feature for our users. I am reluctant to give that up. Could you
please elaborate a little what exactly the problem is that you would
like to solve with this change?


 >  3. use 'git filter-branch' to build a new branch with the macros
 > under m4/, but with the same history.  This, of course, requires
 > everyone to rebase onto a completely new history, but that's a
 > one-time pain.

"git filter-branch" is quite an intrusive operation. As you point out,
that process would render the repository incompatible with all previous
history. Now, according to the logfiles, the repository has been cloned
more than 1800 times. It feels reasonable to assume that only a fraction
of that number of clones is still in existence today and get updated
regularly, but even so there is probably a significant number of people
whom we would inconvenience quite a bit.

Furthermore, the git repository at Savannah won't even let us push that
modified history. We would have to do a 'git push --force', but that
feature is disabled. In other words, without help from the Savannah
administrators, we cannot do this at all.

Personally, I am willing to go that road if it's generally considered to
be the best choice, but I don't think that we should make that decision
lightly.

Take care,
Peter