Move branch tags on certain files instead of merging

[Andreas Otte]

Hello!

I'm evaluating using CVS for our software development as VC-tool.

Here is the scenario:

We have a product in constant development with intermittend releases. Usually a customer gets the product in a certain version (product release) and also gets specific changes to some files of that version (only 2 or 3 percent). These changes are specific for that customer and we want to track them.

So I'm branching for that specific customer at the relaese-point and create a new working copy with cvs co -r CUSTOMER_BRANCH module. Then I do the specific changes for the customer on that branch and tag my real customer release. This branch will have a very long life. If I have to change the customer specific files I do that on the branch. So far so good.

But new feature development happens on the trunk and at some point I decide to move some features (which are in files that are not changed in the customers version) to the version of the customer. I could do a merge against the trunk on that files, but I don't want to do that, because that would create more changed files on the branch (with branch revisions) which are not really different from the trunk. Instead I would like to "move" the new trunk revision on to the branch.  Is this in any way possible? For example by moving the internal (unused) branch tag for that file to the other version and then do an update on that file on the branch?

Regards
    Andreas Otte