Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: give us a hand with arch

[Tom Lord]

    > From: Andrea Arcangeli <address@hidden>

    > They're definitely not data.

    > The only reason they exists is to track down the evolution of the
    > project, 

No, they're also useful for whole-tree changesets.  Another use might
be source auditing.


    > data is the information in a linux-2.4.22.tar.gz package,
    > metadata is what is stored inside the arch archive.

Yes, and, while I am sure that owing to social and political factors
you may have some trouble getting inventory ids (whether explicit,
embedded, or whatever) into those tar bundles, but it's not at all a
bad thing to want to do.  At least one other project (Emacs) is moving
that way.


    > Storing part of the "tracking" code mixed with the data is
    > certainly not clean.

You could think of it not as "tracking" code, although it can be used
for such, but also as a tool for making changesets possible.


    > The reason this is obviously not data, is that an user downloading
    > linux-2.4.22.tar.gz pure data package, will have absolutely zero
    > benefits from the tagline embedded in the source, the tagline for this
    > use will be pure _pollution_. 

You can repeat that as many times as you like, of course.

-t