[ITP] svn_load_dirs

[David Stacey]

On 11/07/13 19:46, David Rothenberger wrote:
> Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>> >On Jul 11 10:15, David Rothenberger wrote:
>>> >>Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>>>> >>>On Jul 10 20:32, David Rothenberger wrote:
>>>>> >>>>In response to a request on the mailing list [1], I've decided to
>>>>> >>>>package svn_load_dirs as a separate package instead of including it
>>>>> >>>>in subversion-tools. The main reason is to facilitate using cygport
>>>>> >>>>to extract the tool from the Subversion repository; I can't see an
>>>>> >>>>easy way to do that as part of the main subversion.cygport file.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>>I can't comment on this subversion vs. cygport problem, but the
>>>> >>>package itself is fine.  Shall I upload?
>>> >>
>>> >>Yes, please.
>>> >>
>>> >>Since the package is just a Perl script, I used the same links for both
>>> >>the 32 and 64-bit packages. I think the same package should work fine
>>> >>for both architectures. You can download it once and just copy it if you
>>> >>want.
>> >
>> >Done as you suggested.
>> >
>> >But there's a catch:  After uploading, while adding the svn_load_dirs
>> >package to the cygwin-pkg-maint file I noticed that there's already a
>> >package svn-load from Jari Aalto, which is apparently already the same
>> >thing per the setup.hint file:
>> >
>> >   sdesc: "An enhanced import facility for Subversion"
>> >   ldesc: "A free replacement for svn_load_dirs, an enhanced import facility for
>> >   Subversion. The utility will commit a single changeset that alters a
>> >   repository subtree to match a local directory. It detects filenames
>> >   that have been removed or created, and uses this knowledge to prompt
>> >   the user about file and directory movements within the subtree. An
>> >   automatic tagging option is also supported. Svn-load is well suited
>> >   for vendor branch maintenance, where external source is routinely
>> >   imported and merged."
>> >   category: Devel Python
>> >   requires: python
>> >
>> >Does it really make sense to have this twice?
> It's not the same thing. svn-load is a svn_load_dirs/replacement/  that
> is written in Python, while svn_load_dirs is written in Perl.
>
> I don't use either and can't comment about why someone would want to use
> svn_load_dirs instead of svn-load, but they are not the exact same things.

Firstly, many thanks for going to this effort and packaging 
svn_load_dirs. I know a little history about this that might help.

svn_load_dirs is a part of Subversion - it is found in the 'contrib' 
section of Subversion's own repo [1] and is documented in the official 
Subversion documentation [2]. Back in 2006/7 there was some doubt as to 
the ownership of svn_load_dirs [3], and so svn_load_dirs was removed 
(temporarily) from Debian.

svn_load was started as a free replacement [4] to fill the gap. However, 
I assume that the ownership and licencing problems of svn_load_dirs were 
sorted out, because now it is licenced under the 'Academic Free Licence' 
[1] and is back in Debian [5]. Indeed, Debian users are spoilt for 
choice, as svn_load is also available [6].

I'm not sure what the differences are between the two (if any), as I've 
never used svn_load. But given that svn_load_dirs comes from the 
Subversion repo and is officially documented, I'd prefer to use that.

Hope this clarifies matters,

Dave.


[1] - 
http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/subversion/tags/1.8.0/contrib/client-side/svn_load_dirs/
[2] - 
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.7/svn.advanced.vendorbr.html#svn.advanced.vendorbr.svn_load_dirs
[3] - http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=406292#10
[4] - http://dannf.org/bloggf/tech/pysvn_load_dirs.html
[5] - 
http://pkgs.org/search/?keyword=%2Fusr%2Fbin%2Fsvn_load_dirs&search_on=files&distro=0
[6] - http://pkgs.org/search/?keyword=svn_load