Re: [Gnu-arch-users] names -> tagline method transition

[Harald Meland]

[Tom Lord]

> A recent trend is more people looking into tracking external projects
> that aren't natively handled in arch.   Would this feature help a lot
> with that?   I think it might.   Not so much for
> names->{explicit,tagline} but for (file-by-file) explicit->embedded.
>
> In other words: start tracking some upstream project.  Use the
> `tagline' method but actually assign ids to file by using `tla add'.
>
> Then, should the upstream project become more "arch friendly",
> embedded tags can be added to its files without changing their
> identity.

This assumes that the "track this project in arch" operation you
describe above has only been performed by *one* party, so that there
is no dissension on what file-ids the upstream maintainer should
assign to the project's files.

If multiple file -> id mappings already exist "in the wild" (as I
suspect might be the case for widely-used projects; e.g. gcc), you'd
need some kind of file-id aliasing scheme; I suspect that this is what
Bruce Perens et al have been talking about when they want arch's
file-id layer to be driven by some secondary (local?) mapping.

Of course, if people could be made to use the first (published)
"arch-converted" version of the project instead of rolling their own,
this might not be a problem.  I, for one, however, don't find that
scenario very likely.
-- 
Harald