[U-Boot] git merge summary

[Detlev Zundel <dzu@denx.de>]

Hi Wolfgang,

> Dear Detlev Zundel,
>
> In message <m2sjxrxm38.fsf@ohwell.denx.de> you wrote:
>> 
>> > may I ask again for opinions about enabling that feature?
>> 
>> I also would like to see it.  Wolfgang, is there anything that you
>> don't like about this option?
>
> There is two things that make me hesitate:
>
> 1) I wonder if it might have negative side effects. If it was
>    generally considered a good thing I would expect that it was set
>    as default, but it ain't.

Personally I cannot think of negative side effects.  Checking recent
linux commits, it seems Linus is using this himself[1] which would be a
pro argument I guess.

> 2) I don't know what exactly needs to be done.  My understandaning is
>    that I can either switch this on globally for all repositories I'm
>    working with (which I do not like), or it needs to be set manually
>    in each and every clone of the U-Boot repo where a merge might be
>    done.

As far as I can see, we should turn it on per repo so that (future)
custodians would get the setting through cloning.  Apart from that I
even don't see anything against turning it on globally.

>    When I throw away a repo for some reason and start with a new clone,
>    I can be pretty sure that I will forget to re-enable this.

Then we should enable it in "the master" repo from which you clone.

>    What needs to be done about custodian repos etc.?

As far as I understand it, we cannot change anything in already cloned
repositories, so every custodian would need to do this configuration.
On the other hand we can add this setting (yes, I volunteer) on our git
server for all repos, so future clones will get it.

> In other words, it sounds like a thing that causes effort and can go
> wrong nevertheless.

It will cause effort, yes, alas I don't see what can go wrong. It will
be a policy that we can never enforce for individual users, so there
remains a chance that individuals will do merges without the setting.

On the other hand, I guess what really counts is whether _you_ (doing
all practically relevant merges) use it or not.  So essentially it is a
question of whether you can add that in all of your repos.

> So I'd rather wait until either this option is used as defualt by some
> new version of git, or at least until there is a broader request and
> consensus among the custodians.

In this thread you previously wrote:

> If there is an agreement (or at least no protests) we can add
> 'merge.log'.
> 
> Shall we?

Have you become more pessimistic?

Cheers
  Detlev

[1] http://git.denx.de/?p=linux-2.6-denx.git;a=commit;h=8cad7f06e3b1d3f9a28bb7385e8fc09d5e1bf84c
-- 
#!/usr/bin/perl
$c="print\"\#\!\/usr\/bin\/perl\
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print"#!/usr/bin/perl\n\$c=\"".quotemeta($c)."\";\n$c;";
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