Summer of Code 2008 project application draft: Pack v4

Dear Git community,

Here is a draft of my application for the Google Summer of Code 2008. I am aware, that this is a big project, so how might the scope be limited, so that the work is still useful to build on top of? How about just rebasing the patches already in the sp/pack4 branch in the fastimport.git repository?

The application text goes like this:

" The project goal is to rebase the code and ideas developed for the version 4 of the git pack format, which showed good promise of making packs smaller, and faster.

The ideas of a new even more optimized pack format has been floating around the git world for almost two years, and because of the rapid pace of development the code implementing those ideas has become less, and less ready for inclusion in mainline.

Since those patches touch so many of the core functions in git, it will be a good chunk of work getting them mergeable, and nobody has gotten around to doing that yet. This will be a good oppertunity for laying the ground work, and getting the ball rolling again.

This project will not only benefit Git itself, but also the nummerous projects, and developers using Git as their prefered revision control system, among them many prominent open source and free software projects.

About me: I have been following the development of Git on and of almost from the beginning, and have been trying to learn from its design, and implementation, and especially I have been interested in implementation of the git repository, index, and pack format. I have contributed a few general clean-up patches, but I have not yet had the chance (read time) to really dive in, and make a significant, and non-trivial contribution, although I would have liked to. "

Comments?

Regards,

Peter