Re: Should we discuss Windows-related changes on git@vger.kernel.org?

From: Steffen Prohaska <prohaska@zib.de>
Date: Jul 12, 2008, 07:38 UTC
Message-ID: <B3761FA2-6313-421B-B47F-E03A258DEB6F@zib.de>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.1.10.0807111653500.2875@woody.linux-foundation.org>

On Jul 12, 2008, at 1:58 AM, Linus Torvalds wrote:

Show 7 quoted lines

> On Sat, 12 Jul 2008, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
>>
>> But we are talking about 4msysgit.git, no?
>
> I'm not. I'm just talking about Windows-related changes in git in
> general, that are expected to be merged into regular git one way or
> another.

The discussion is not about 4msysgit, because 4msysgit will no longer be needed after we cleaned up all differences between Junio's master and 4msysgit's master.

I propose the following steps:

  - We review the differences and either prepare patches for official  
git
    or revert commits in 4msysgit.
    -> It will no longer matter if we build the msysgit release from
    Junio's master or from 4msysgit's master.

  - We change the /git submodule in msysgit to point to Junio's repo.
    -> Every developer on Windows will work with the official code base.

  - Windows-users can (and should) participate in the official release
    cycle.  They should test the next branch and the master branch after
    the merge window closed.  We can easily create installers for  
Junio's
    release candidates (I will do this).

We should provide a guideline how developers and users should send comments and improvements related to Windows. Such a guideline could be included in Junio's "A note from the maintainer" mail. The section on Windows needs to be changed anyway. Currently it says:

'''
- Johannes Schindelin and Johannes Sixt for their effort to
   move things forward on the Windows front.  Although my
   repository does not have much from the effort of MinGW team,
   I expect a merge into mainline will happen so that everybody
   can work from the same codebase.
'''

[ Note that the last sentence will become true if we do what I propose
   above. ]

We could send more detailed guidelines to the msysgit list and/or modify the homepage of the msysgit project. I think Junio's rule of thumb in

   http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/88191

is a good starting point.

It would be good to achieve all this during the 1.6 cycle, because MinGW is officially part of 1.6. I am however not sure if it is practical. We have some changes in 4msysgit that might need more discussion and we did not even start discussing the tests. So maybe 1.6.1 is more realistic.

	Steffen