Considering moving all Launchpad branches to 2a - based formats

[Aaron Bentley]

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Hi all,

I'm investigating the possibility of doing a mass upgrade of all
Launchpad branches into up-to-date formats.  Thereafter, we would
either forbid old formats to be uploaded, or automatically upgrade them.

Why are we considering this?
- ----------------------------
The way Launchpad currently handles branch formats is broken.  We
permit stacked branches to have different formats from the branches
they are stack on, which makes them unusable (Bug 828409).  There are
other ways of addressing these issues, like converting all stacked
branches into formats compatible with their stacked-on branches, but
these would be more complicated.

Who would this break?
- ---------------------
Bazaar versions prior to 1.16.1, from June 2009.  There is no
supported desktop version of Ubuntu with a version that old, however
Hardy Server is still supported, and it shipped with 1.3.1.  RHEL 4
and 5 may also be affected.

What are the next steps?
- ------------------------
Examine Launchpad's current inventory of branches, determine whether
there are major active branches on Launchpad in stale formats, and if
so, why.

Aaron
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