Debian XSF SVN to git migration

[Thierry Reding]

Hi all,

The Debian X Strike Force is about to move their repository for X-related
packages from SVN to git. The scripts we use for the migration seem pretty
much finished, but there are a couple of issues that still need discussion.

I'm Cc'ing the X.org mailing list because we want to make it as easy as
possible for you to see what we're doing and would appreciate any help or
insights you could share. I guess the results of this discussion could be
equally useful for other distributions that want to use git for packaging
purposes.

First of all is the question of the repository layout. What was clear from
the start is that we'd like to mirror the directory structure from upstream.
The second issue is what to do with the upstream sources. So far the
alternatives we've been discussing are 1) having selected upstream branches
cloned into our repositories and 2) leaving it up to the packager to use
upstream branches in their local clones of the Debian repositories. Does any
of these alternatives have a significant advantage over the other? Is there
perhaps a different approach that would work even better?

A very related issue is how to work with Debian-specific branches. Should we
use a master branch which we keep the packaging files in and into which we
merge/cherry-pick from the upstream branches as necessary? Or would it be
better to have separate upstream and Debian branches and merge those two into
the master branch? What we're looking for is the easiest way to pull and push
patches so we can keep the difference between the Debian packages and
upstream as small as possible.

Those are the major issues I can currently think of, but if I've left
something out feel free to raise anything you think could be important.

 - Thierry

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