[Savannah-dev] Re: epm and savannah patch manager

[Mathieu Roy]

(moved to savannah-dev)


Hi Karl,

The current patch tracker, builtin, in the production version no
longer exists in the development version of Savannah.

Appart from that, I was not able to get, without compiling the
software, how it is supposed to work. I'm not sure at all that his
purpose his similar to the Savannah patch tracker.

In fact, I have the strong feeling that epm goal is pretty different
than the patch tracker at Savannah.

In the case of the patch tracker at Savannah, is it about managing
patches wrote by someone external to a project inside the context of
project. It is a web interface where people can post a patch, add
comments (etc.)

In the case of epm, it does not seems to be a project management tool
of patch but a personal patch management. It does not come to with a
web interface and does not involve how projects handle patches but how
an individual create patches.

I may misunderstand the goal of this project but the description made
by the author and is pretty short.

Here it is:
     
    "* It doesn't use CVS or require it.  When you `epm add' files, it stores
      a copy of them in the epm database for diffing later.

    * It can make diffs for added and deleted files.  

    * It can handle "stacks" of patches.  You can start a patch, mail it off,
      start a new patch based on it, etc.  When you pop a patch off the stack,
      it removes the changes you made for that patch from your working tree.
      If you push it back on the stack, the changes are reapplied."

<http://savannah.nongnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/epm/epm/README?rev=1.1&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup>

address@hidden (Karl Berry) a tapoté :

> Hello savannah hackers,
>
> GNU was recently offered some patch manager software, named (at the
> moment) epm.  It is hosted on savannah.nongnu.org now:
> http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/epm
>
> Its purpose is to manage uninstalled patches in a fairly sophisticated
> way.  You can define dependencies, modify the patches, and so on.
> The author wrote it to manage (the numerous) patches that he submits to
> various free software patches.
>
> I sent my basic evaluation to rms, and he suggested that since savannah
> has a patch manager feature, I ask you about this.  He writes:
>   Would we want to change Savannah to use epm?  If not, why not?  Could
>   he make it into something we'd want to use on savannah?  If we are to
>   reoommend this to others for the purpose, we should make sure it's
>   something we'd want to use ourselves for the purpose.
>
> So, would you mind taking a look and seeing what you think?  At first
> glance, it seemed to me that epm had more functionality than the current
> patch manager, although coming up with a web ui for it is of course
> a separate and nontrivial task.
>
> If you have any suggestions for the author, I'll be happy to forward them.
>
> Is savannah using built-in code now for the patch manager feature, or
> some externally-released software?  I had the impression it was
> built-in, but I don't know for sure.
>
> By the way, there is no documentation now beyond --help.  If you want to
> try it, the author informs me that the basic idea is "epm push IDENT",
> followed by "epm add PATCHFILE".
>
> Thanks,
> karl
>
> _______________________________________________
> Savannah-hackers mailing list
> address@hidden
> http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/savannah-hackers

-- 
Mathieu Roy

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