Re: [RFC][PATCH] Allow transfer of any valid sha1

ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman) writes:

- I don't know which branch I need to fetch.

As you say yourself Andrew marks which one he fetched from, so
this is a non-issue.

- Fetching a branch that I just want a subset of is wasteful.

Generally this is true, but in practice and especially for this
particular application I do not think so.  After all Andrew
pulled from the tip and got that tip, and IIUYC you are trying
to follow what Andrew did, so you'd be better doing this soon
after Andrew annouces the series, so your subset would be a
close to 100% subset.  Otherwise you would have different
problem anyway -- the tree owner after seeing -mm tree has his
series may rewind and rebuild the branch in preparation of
feeding him with the next time around.

- It feels really weird when everything else allows me to use sha1s
  for git-fetch to deny them.

That is a real argument and I am not opposed to change
fetch-pack to ask for an arbitrary SHA1 the caller obtained out
of band.

Then there is the big hole in my plan to get better changelog information
that it appears that after Andrew pulls a branch he resolves some
merge conflicts.  If that is right I need to figure out how to address
that before I can improve git-quiltimport.sh.

The last time I talked with Andrew, he is not doing a merge nor
resolving merge conflicts.  He treats git primarily as a
patchbomb distribution mechanism, and works on (a rough
equivalent of) the output of format-patch from merge base
between his base tree and individual subsystem tree.  After that
things are normal quilt workflow outside git, whatever it is.