Roadmap for supporting parallel import of files

[James Westby]

Hi,

In the use of bzr in Ubuntu this cycle we plan to start merging Debian
package maintainers' branches with the branches that Ubuntu have created
with much of the same content.

In order to do this well we need better support in bzr for parallel
imports of files. We do not need better support for parallel imports
of revisions as we have a different revision history anyway.

This means we are primarily interested in a way to model the "join"
of two file ids in bzr, so that we can merge changes correctly, and
have good history display.

The often talked about proposal that would handle this, and more, is
path tokens:

  http://bazaar-vcs.org/DraftSpecs/PathTokens

Does that proposed solution have the consensus of the developers as the
way to tackle this issue? If not, are there any alternative proposals?

I understand that this ability may also make things like file copies
possible, but I would prefer it if we didn't have to decide on the
semantics for merging over file copies etc. before putting the
underlying infrastructure in place.

Is this on anyones roadmap for a post-2.0 feature already? Does anyone
else have requirements that should be taken in to account in this
discussion (I know Jelmer is interested in parallel import support).

Thanks,

James