Re: [GNU-linux-libre] The "Free" Kernel In Debian Squeeze

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Dec 19, 2010, Richard Stallman <address@hidden> wrote:

> I think what we want is a program that will modify a git repository by
> meta-deleting a certain range of code.

Yup.  That's relatively easy.  The difficulty is in maintaining the
ability to merge changes from one repository to the other.

There are two options AFAICT:

- rewrite the revision history, so that new hashes (that identify the
commits) are computed for each revision => repositories become
incompatible

- revise the history as in a branch => repositories remain compatible,
but their history will carry the non-Free portions, and there doesn't
seem to be any way to refrain from carrying (or redistributing) them,
since the commit ids carrying them are explicitly mentioned in the
modified commits.

What is really needed is someone familiar with the git's guts :-) to let
me know whether I'm missing something and there is indeed a way to
accomplish what we want, or if we have to make a tough call on how to
proceed.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva, freedom fighter    http://FSFLA.org/~lxoliva/
You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Gandhi
Be Free! -- http://FSFLA.org/   FSF Latin America board member
Free Software Evangelist      Red Hat Brazil Compiler Engineer