tarballs - why in SVN?

["Eddy Petrişor" <eddy.petrisor@gmail.com>]

Hello,

I was wondering, since SVN can't check out just one file, orig
tarballs do not change for a release and every new upstream release
will bring a new version, does it make sense in keeping orig tarballs
in SVN? I would say no and suggest moving all of them in the web
sapace or the FTP space of the project. This will not force somebody
wanting to build a package to checkout hundereds of MB just for one
500kB file.

What do you say?

I also suggest adding a property to the trunk of the package which
should point to the exact URL from where the orig tarball should be
gotten from. I already did this for oolite by setting svn-bp:origUrl
(svn-bp is as a pointer for future svn-buildpackage version which
would support downloading the orig tarball before building, while
origUrl is obvious):

svn propset svn-bp:origUrl
http://pkg-games.alioth.debian.org/tarballs/oolite_1.65.orig.tar.gz
oolite



Hints:
$ svn help propset
propset (pset, ps): Set the value of a property on files, dirs, or revisions.
usage: 1. propset PROPNAME PROPVAL PATH...
      2. propset PROPNAME --revprop -r REV PROPVAL [TARGET]

 1. Creates a versioned, local propchange in working copy.
[snip]

--
Regards,
EddyP
=============================================
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" A.Einstein