Re: Integration of git-based release workflow into "make dist"

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Fri, 14 Aug 2009, Roger Leigh wrote:

> ÿÿ distribute generated release tarball
>
> However, the "distribute release tarball" step is becoming less and
> less relevant with the advent of git.

The "release tarball" step is always needed since software development 
is protected by copyright laws so we need a step which is a equivalent 
to publishing the work.  A release branch or tag in a live repository 
will not be compelling enough in a court of law.  No judge or jury 
would understand it or believe it.  Creating a git repository to 
contain the release and then bundling up so that it can be archived as 
a new form of "tarball" would be sufficient as long as it is clearly 
an act of publishing the work.

> I do a lot of Debian packaging work, as well as actual software
> development for Debian.  All of this work nowadays occurs in git
> repositories.  For packages of software distributed by third

Maintenance for other OSs may be in Subversion, Mercurial, CVS, 
Perforce, or one of the many other active version control systems.

> ÿÿ Add a dist-git option and Makefile target.
>  This will cause $distdir to be injected into git, rather than just
>  calling tar as for other git targets.

It is easy enough for the Automake user to add targets like "dist-git" 
since Automake is extensible.  The main problem you will face is how 
to herd the cats so that they all add a "dist-git" option that you 
want for your particular release system.  This seems quite hard to 
accomplish unless your OS distribution can somehow become the clear 
monopoly player so that the work of others can be ignored and rendered 
pointless.

If this manages to be implemented flexibly and concrete enough to be 
included in stock Automake, then it should be a requirement to support 
the many other version control systems as well.

Bob
--
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/