Re: How to maintain packaging files for multiple distributions in the same tree?

[Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de>]

Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org> writes:

> On Tue, Jan 30, 2007 at 03:07:27PM +0100, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
>> Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org> writes:
>> 
>> > On Mon, Jan 29, 2007 at 10:20:23AM +0100, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
>> >> In Ubuntu you have a parallel version. You split of from the main
>> >> trunk but you follow parallel to it at a small distance. For every new
>> >> main version you want a new ubuntu version. Ubuntu versions aren't a
>> >> branch but rather a filter on top of the main release. The main
>> >> release changes, the filter remains constant (hopefully).
>> >
>> > The meaning of your "filter" analogy above isn't clear to me.  By "Ubuntu
>> > versions" do you mean "releases of Ubuntu" or "Ubuntu versions of packages
>> > derived from Debian"?
>> [...]
>> Distribution filter: (with patches going both ways)
>> 
>> ----+--+------+--+--- Debian
>>      \  \    /    \
>>       +--+--+------+- Ubuntu
>
> What you have described is a branch, in revision control terminology.
>
>> > It is work, yes, but in many cases it is necessary, and we do quite a bit of
>> > it at present.
>> 
>> Hopefully the graphic above makes it clear why a branch isn't the most
>> helpfull construct for it. Unfortunately I know of no RCS that has
>> something better for this kind of parallel developement.
>
> This is a fundamental feature of Bazaar and other modern distributed RCS.


Except that you always have to manually push or pull the changes from
one branch to the other (or one repository to the other) and they can
always result in conflicts. They always need attention to keep them in
sync.

If you had true parallel revisions then there should be a way to edit
both "branches" at the same time and check in changes to both at the
same time.


What I feel works best though is a patch system where you have a
series file for debian and ubuntu. Common patches are listed in both
and specific changes only in one of them. Changes to a common patch
will automatically be used by both then. A patch system resembles best
what I mean by "filter".

MfG
        Goswin