[Python-Dev] RE: [Patches] [Patch #101055] Cookie.py

[Tim Peters]

Moving this over from patches to python-dev.

My 2 cents:  The primary job of a source control system is to maintain an
accurate and easily retrieved historical record of a project.  Tim
O'Malley's ,v file records the history of his project, Python's should
record the history of its.  While a handful of people at CNRI have been able
to (or could, if they were of a common mind to) keep track of a handful of
exceptions in their heads, Python's CVS tree is available to the world now,
and approximately nobody looking at it will have any knowledge of this
discussion.  If they ask CVS for a date-based snapshot of the past, they're
using CVS for what it's *designed* for, and they should get back what they
asked for.

Have these kinds of tricks already been played in the CVS tree?  I'm mildly
concerned about that too, because whenever license or copyright issues are
in question, an accurate historical record is crucial ("Now, Mr. Kuchling,
isn't it true that you deliberately sabotaged the history of the Python
project in order to obscure your co-conspirators' theft of my client's
intellectual property?" <0.9 wink>).

let's-honor-the-past-by-keeping-it-honest-ly y'rs  - tim

> -----Original Message-----
> From: patches-admin@python.org [mailto:patches-admin@python.org]On
> Behalf Of Fred L. Drake, Jr.
> Sent: Friday, August 18, 2000 4:06 PM
> To: noreply@sourceforge.net
> Cc: akuchlin@mems-exchange.org; patches@python.org
> Subject: Re: [Patches] [Patch #101055] Cookie.py
>
>
>
> noreply@sourceforge.net writes:
>  > I have a copy of Tim O'Malley's ,v file (in order to preserve the
>  > version history).  I can either ask the SF admins to drop it into
>  > the right place in the CVS repository, but will that screw up the
>  > Python 1.6 tagging in some way?  (I would expect not, but who
>  > knows?)
>
>   That would have no effect on any of the Python tagging.  It's
> probably worthwhile making sure there are no tags in the ,v file, but
> that can be done after it gets dropped in place.
>   Now, Greg Stein will tell us that dropping this into place is the
> wrong thing to do.  What it *will* screw up is people asking for the
> state of Python at a specific date before the file was actually added;
> they'll get this file even for when it wasn't in the Python CVS tree.
> I can live with that, but we should make a policy decision for the
> Python tree regarding this sort of thing.
>
>  > The second option would be for me to retrace Cookie.py's
>  > development -- add revision 1.1, check in revision 1.2 with the
>  > right log message, check in revision 1.3, &c.  Obviously I'd prefer
>  > to not do this.
>
>   Don't -- it's not worth it.
>
>
>   -Fred
>
> --
> Fred L. Drake, Jr.  <fdrake at beopen.com>
> BeOpen PythonLabs Team Member
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Patches mailing list
> Patches@python.org
> http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/patches