cvs commit: src/contrib/diff diff.c diff.h prepend_args.c prepend_args.h sdiff.c util.c

[Xin LI]

John Baldwin wrote:
> On Friday 15 June 2007 03:22:26 am Xin LI wrote:
>> delphij     2007-06-15 07:22:26 UTC
>>
>>   FreeBSD src repository
>>
>>   Removed files:
>>     contrib/diff         diff.c diff.h prepend_args.c 
>>                          prepend_args.h sdiff.c util.c 
>>   Log:
>>   Remove files that were taken off vendor branch.  Difference
>>   against vendor branch is now maintained in patchsets.
> 
> This seems like a really odd approach to take.  Why bother using source code 
> control if we are going to use patches anyway?  Is this an effort to keep the 
> vendor branch clean to avoid pissing off certain people?

Well, the reason behind this was that diffutils is being actively
maintained, yet we do want to keep some local changes that is not
expected to be accepted by upstream; on the other hand the way CVS
handles vendor branch is not quite ideal (once a file is off the branch,
we can never put it back even when upstream accepted it without heavy
repository magic).  Moreover, follow up commit which mixes vendor
changes (to "resolve conflicts") and new local changes (perhaps to make
it build, etc) makes reviewing harder.

I can, of course, switch to another way if most people think that it is
better, however, my own experience with CVS's vendor branch is that
keeping files on the vendor branch rather than taking it off in response
of emergency events (like security updates, for instance) would save a
lot of time the next time we imported new stuff, and reduce the
reviewing diff size by not including much vendor changes into it.

Cheers,