Hi Alex, At 2022-12-12T16:43:16+0100, Alejandro Colomar wrote: > I have a plan of integrating pre-git history of the Linux man-pages > into the official git repository. I have two approaches in mind: > > - Start at the first git commit: > > commit fea681dafb1363a154b7fc6d59baa83d2a9ebc5c (tag: man-pages-1.70) > Author: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpa...@gmail.com> > Date: Wed Nov 3 13:51:07 2004 +0000 > > Import of man-pages 1.70 > > And branch from it in a 'prehistory' branch which would go backwards, > that is, every commit would be farther in time, so the tip of the > branch would be the oldest tarball I can reach. This has the benefit > of always being able to go farther, just by adding a commit to that > branch. > > - Or create a parallel branch that has nothing in common, and put it > in normal order, so the first commit would again be the oldest one > known, and then go on from there. This one has several disadvantages: > (*) If we find yet an older release, you need to either rebase or > create a third line; (*) You can't compare against that branch with > git. > > I'm very likely going for the first approach. > > That may serve you, Branden; wouldn't it be nice to have those > prehistoric roffs in a branch that has a common ancestor with HEAD? > :P
Neither of these approaches excites me as a change to groff's _development_ repo--either one could indeed be useful in a separate "groff archeology" project, of the read-only, may-get-the-entire-history-rewritten-at-any-time approach like Diomidis Spinellis uses. I think the backwards time-travel approach of the first would simply confuse me. And for the second, we not only have a gap at the "beginning" of groff history (before 1.02) but also, as Dave pointed out, interstitial ones as well. Versions 1.03, 1.12, 1.12.1, and 1.13 are all missing--perhaps others. This isn't to say that either of your approaches is a bad one in general; I simply don't think they mesh well with an active development repo with an incomplete pre-Git historical record. Regards, Branden
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