New semantics for split and join in bzr 2.0

[Ian Clatworthy]

Gioele Barabucci wrote:

> When I wanted to split a directory into its own project I felt the need to 
> remove all the unneeded history (and luckily Ian Clatworthy implemented
> fast-import-filter short after my request, thank you again Ian).

No problem. I'm pleased it's working well for you.

> The fact
> that I was losing the ability to merge back has never been a problem to me. 
> Instead, the ability to get rid of hundreds of megabytes of past history and 
> files (not just in the working tree but in the .bzr files as well) and 
> having a non-polluted log were way more important.

Right. And in closed-source projects wanting to open-source a useful
subset - something I like to encourage, the current behaviour of split
is certainly not going to meet their needs.

I think there in room for both solutions and the User Guide ought to
explain the differences. It would be nice if fast-import matured enough
to be bundled with the Windows and OS X installers as well, but that's a
way off yet.

Ian C.