Re: RFC - tarball/patch server in BitKeeper

Martin J. Bligh
2003-12-15T06:31:15Z

> I've prototyped an extension to BitKeeper that provides tarballs
> and patches. The idea is to make it possible for all trees hosted by
> bkbits.net provide access to the data with a free client (included below
> in prototype form).
>
> The system is simplistic, it just provides a way to get the most recent
> sources as a tarball and then any later updates as a patch. There is
> no provision for generating diffs, editing files, merging, etc. All of
> that is something that you can write, if you want, using standard tools
> (think hard linked trees).
>
> Before rolling this out, I want to know if this is going to (finally)
> put to rest any complaints about BK not being open source, available on
> all platforms, etc. You need to understand that this is all you get,
> we're not going to extend this so you can do anything but track the most
> recent sources accurately. No diffs. No getting anything but the most
> recent version. No revision history.
>
> If you want anything other than the most recent version your choices
> are to use BitKeeper itself or, if you want the main branches of the
> Linux kernel, the BK2CVS exports. This is not a gateway product, it
> is a way for developers to track the latest and greatest with a free
> (source based) client. It is not a way to convert BK repos to $SCM.
>
> If the overwhelming response is positive then I'll add this to the
> bkbits.net server and perhaps eventually to the BK product itself.

That looks very cool to me at least - I'd find it helpful, I think.
Thank you.

One thing that I've wished for in the past which looks like it *might*
be trivial to do is to grab a raw version of the patch you already
put out in HTML format, eg if I surf down changesets and get to a page
like this:

http://linus.bkbits.net:8080/linux-2.5/patch@1.1522?nav=index.html|ChangeSet@-2w|cset@1.1522

except it got html formatted, so I can't play with it easily. Is there
any way to provide the raw format of that? If not, or you don't want to,
no problem - would just be convenient. This isn't a open source vs not
issue, it's just I often want one fix without the whole tree, and it'd
be a convenient place to grab it.

> * Licensed under the NWL - No Whining License.
> *
> * You may use this, modify this, redistribute this provided you agree:
> * - not to whine about this product or any other products from BitMover, Inc.
> * - that there is no warranty of any kind.
> * - retain this copyright in full.

;-)

M.

PS. If you could possibly generate the diffs with -p, whether you supply
them in raw format or not, it'd make them easier to read.