Using git for patch management in Fedora

[Daniel P. Berrange]

On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 03:36:54PM -0800, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 05:32:01PM +0000, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 07:27:20PM +0200, Alek Paunov wrote:
> > > On 19.11.2013 16:20, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
> > > >On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 01:29:06PM +0000, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> > > >>On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 01:39:50PM +0100, Karel Zak wrote:
> > > >>>We have to learn fedpkg to do all the magic ;-) Something like
> > > >>>
> > > >>>add remote git tree with exploded tree:
> > > >>>
> > > >>>   fedpkg exploded-tree add ssh://git.fedorahosted.org/git/foo.git
> > > >>
> > > >>This is all great, but the problem is that co-maintainers and
> > > >>provenpackagers need to be (automatically if possible) added to the
> > > >>fedorahosted tree.  Otherwise there's a big extra step for them if
> > > >>they want to follow the package owner's preferred patching system.
> > > >
> > > >Ideally the GIT SCM request added to bugzilla when reviews are
> > > >approved would have a "Upstream GIT URL" option and would setup
> > > >a clone of this, and create branches for the fedora releases,
> > > >and apply the same permissioning model from dist-git branches
> > > >of the same names.
> > > >
> > > 
> > > What about intermediate step: optional "fNN-upstream" branch in
> > > addition to fNN, containing relevant upstream revision as git
> > > submodule (preferably referencing fedorahosted mirror, but initially
> > > also allowing "external" clones)?
> > 
> > I think it would be better to keep the upstream repo separate for
> > sake of size. People who just want to checkout the latest RPM
> > branches don't want to have to pull down 100's of MB, potentially
> > GB, worth of GIT repo, when current Fedora GIT repos are a mere
> > few MB. Only maintainers actively updating patches need that
> > burden.
> > 
> It probably makes sense to have a "lookaside git" that's similar to the
> "lookaside cache".
> 
> One note though, I think that in the past one of the discussion points we've
> foundered on is whether we want to be mirroring upstream's git repo or
> (approximately) upstream's releases.  I think that's probably where we'd
> need to start discussion.

For it to be useful to me we'd need to be mirroring the upstream git
repo continuously, not just at releases. I will frequently cherry-pick
patches directly from GIT master into the Fedora maint branches that I
maintain.

Regards,
Daniel
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