Re: Groff History in Git. (Was: groff in git)

[G. Branden Robinson]

Hi Alex,

At 2022-12-12T16:43:16+0100, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> I have a plan of integrating pre-git history of the Linux man-pages
> into the official git repository.  I have two approaches in mind:
> 
> - Start at the first git commit:
> 
>     commit fea681dafb1363a154b7fc6d59baa83d2a9ebc5c (tag: man-pages-1.70)
>     Author: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
>     Date:   Wed Nov 3 13:51:07 2004 +0000
> 
>         Import of man-pages 1.70
> 
> And branch from it in a 'prehistory' branch which would go backwards,
> that is, every commit would be farther in time, so the tip of the
> branch would be the oldest tarball I can reach.  This has the benefit
> of always being able to go farther, just by adding a commit to that
> branch.
> 
> - Or create a parallel branch that has nothing in common, and put it
> in normal order, so the first commit would again be the oldest one
> known, and then go on from there.  This one has several disadvantages:
> (*) If we find yet an older release, you need to either rebase or
> create a third line; (*) You can't compare against that branch with
> git.
> 
> I'm very likely going for the first approach.
> 
> That may serve you, Branden; wouldn't it be nice to have those
> prehistoric roffs in a branch that has a common ancestor with HEAD?
> :P

Neither of these approaches excites me as a change to groff's
_development_ repo--either one could indeed be useful in a separate
"groff archeology" project, of the read-only,
may-get-the-entire-history-rewritten-at-any-time approach like Diomidis
Spinellis uses.

I think the backwards time-travel approach of the first would simply
confuse me.  And for the second, we not only have a gap at the
"beginning" of groff history (before 1.02) but also, as Dave pointed
out, interstitial ones as well.  Versions 1.03, 1.12, 1.12.1, and 1.13
are all missing--perhaps others.

This isn't to say that either of your approaches is a bad one in
general; I simply don't think they mesh well with an active development
repo with an incomplete pre-Git historical record.

Regards,
Branden

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