What about provide some metadata for branches ?

[Martin Pool]

On 20 Jan 2007, Simon Rozet <simon at atonie.org> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am thinking about writing a plugin who add metadata capabilities
> to bzr branches.
> 
> Here is some metadata example, 
> inspired by the [DOAP spec](http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-osproj3/) :
> 
> - Name
> - Description
> - Developer
> - Homepage
> - Mailing-list
> - Programming language
> - ...

The simplest way is probably just to add a file in the root of the
source tree: .doap or something.  That is vcs-independent, and can
survive even when exported to a tarball and so on.

I don't know how many people would really want to write DOAP XML by
hand, and last time I looked there was no good editor program.  A simple
ini file might be better.

DOAP and this sort of file would be good for project metadata.  For
branches you would probably want something that is not copied by default
when you branch or merge.  We could add space for more fields alongside
the branch nick. 

The other thing worth mentioning is that Launchpad.net has some features
for tracking branch metadata.  For example here are some registered
branches for Bazaar:

  https://code.launchpad.net/bzr/

and you can click through to see more about what is being done, or
intended to be done, on those branches.  At the moment you can't sort
that list by activity, so it is a bit cluttered, but that will be fixed
soon.

What else would you like to do with this metadata?

-- 
Martin