Is this right?

[Vincent Ladeuil]

>>>>> "Stephen" == Stephen J Turnbull <stephen at xemacs.org> writes:

    Stephen> Guillermo Gonzalez writes:
    >> On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 8:55 PM, Russel Winder

    >> > To be honest all that is needed is a small announcement email on the
    >> > email list and a note on the Lauchpad pages.  The issue is public
    >> > information presented in places where people can find it easily.

    Stephen> I'm sorry, but that's 1995 thinking.  In 2008, the
    Stephen> issue is not where "people can find it easily"---as
    Stephen> you point out, people generally won't go farther
    Stephen> than "trivially"---it is where "machines can follow
    Stephen> it automatically".  We know how to do this.


You're talking about the other side of the problem there, Russel
was talking about the subscribers of a branch, you're talking
about the publisher.

On that side there are indeed several means to address the
problem but none can be fully automated, the publisher *has* to
do *something*.

    Stephen> (1) HTTP redirect.

Already supported (modulo some known bugs I'm aware of and plan
to address ASAP (for medium values of soon)).

    Stephen> (2) Any URL schema private to bzr could grow a
    Stephen> redirect status.

Well, lp itself use the 'location' file trick, I don't remember
the details nor the policy about support for that in bzr but it's
protocol neutral.

    Stephen> (3) repo formats could grow a redirect
    Stephen> configuration.  (2) could probably be implemented
    Stephen> this way, but for robustness (the case when a repo
    Stephen> gets completely removed) there should be a net
    Stephen> protocol that could be implemented by a lightweight
    Stephen> server on the well-known port.

YAGNI. You still need the publisher to *do* something.

A cheap trick than can be used *today* is to make a commit with a
comment containing the new location.

But note that this doesn't address the case we're talking about
because the old branch just doesn't exist anymore so there is *no
place* where you can put a redirection mechanism in place.

<snip/>

    >> I'll [send out an announcement] ASAP
    >> If you think that announcement should be in other places, please let
    >> me know and I'll post there too.

    Stephen> Of course as long as the technology is broken, this
    Stephen> is indeed the courteous thing to do.

Well, even when the branch still exists if the publisher does
nothing, subscribers stay in the dark... so it's not a
technological problem only.

         Vincent