Integrating the kernel tree and lkml

Integrating the kernel tree and lkml

[Jon Smirl]

The thread about using a news reader to read the git history caused me
wonder if are other synergies between git and the mail/news world.

You could load the lkml history into the git db along with the kernel
tree. Then process the mailing list history to tie discussion threads
to commits. As you look at commits with gitk you could also see the
relevant messages on lkml.

Of course post processing lkml may not tie the threads to the commits
very well. But if we built something like this we could start putting
the right clues into the threads to make sure they get linked to the
commits properly in the future. For example you could link an existing
thread by including the sha1 of the commit in a reply.

The git kernel history is about three years old. How big is three
years of lkml put into git and packed? A db like this may not be for
everyone but it could always live on a server with web access.

-- 
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl@gmail.com

Re: Integrating the kernel tree and lkml

[Steven Grimm]

Jon Smirl wrote:
> You could load the lkml history into the git db along with the kernel
> tree. Then process the mailing list history to tie discussion threads
> to commits. As you look at commits with gitk you could also see the
> relevant messages on lkml.
>   

That sounds a lot like the "notes" proposal that was discussed on this 
list a couple months back. It included a notion of "soft references" 
which were used to tie commits to the note objects; that would 
presumably apply to the mailing list messages as well. IIRC the 
implementation that was proposed had some issues. Not sure what happened 
to it in the end.

Such a capability would also be a good integration point for bug 
tracking systems.

-Steve

Re: Integrating the kernel tree and lkml

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Mon, 13 Aug 2007, Steven Grimm wrote:

> Jon Smirl wrote:
> > You could load the lkml history into the git db along with the kernel
> > tree. Then process the mailing list history to tie discussion threads
> > to commits. As you look at commits with gitk you could also see the
> > relevant messages on lkml.
> 
> That sounds a lot like the "notes" proposal that was discussed on this 
> list a couple months back. It included a notion of "soft references" 
> which were used to tie commits to the note objects; that would 
> presumably apply to the mailing list messages as well. IIRC the 
> implementation that was proposed had some issues. Not sure what happened 
> to it in the end.

FWIW I planned to continue working on the notes post 1.5.3.

Ciao,
Dscho