Re: [Monotone-devel] Several questions

[graydon hoare]

"Michel Rasschaert" <address@hidden> writes:

> - Is it (or will it be) possible to fetch a partial image of a depot?

well, it's possible to fetch a partial image (just fetch 'since' a
nonzero sequence number), but you'll be fetching a partial image of a
*transmission log*, not of the software tree. so that's of no real use
unless you've got a working tree already.

if you just want to "fix a bug", you can download a tarball and import
that (monotone add *), then make your patch and mail it. since tree
states are identified by content rather than any sort of inter-machine
relationships, it'll appear to us just as if your patch were made in
the depot, forked off the tarball version, and should 3-way merge with
the current heads fine.

(more complex set-oriented partial synchronization, which is obviously
 the 'angle' of your question, is something we're still playing with
 ideas for. if you have some suggestions or important-seeming use
 cases, please don't hesitate to pursue the topic further)

> - Is there a plan to have a libmonotone to allow easy development of other
> clients (think gui or ide plugins). 

it doesn't exist currently, but we've tried to limit the client to running
in a batch mode through a single entry-point function, so it should be 
plausible to build such a thing.

> However if this library exists I hope it will be licensed under the
> LGPL to allow buisness to take a more serious interest in monotone.

well, a library is linking, and monotone is currently GPL, so.. at
this point the answer would clearly be "no" to that, unless you do it
as a subprocess-on-a-pipe sort of library, which isn't always so bad.

personally I don't mind releasing future monotones under LGPL, either
way. I hadn't really considered it before. we'd need a consensus from
the 3-4 other people who have contributed patches so far, but I doubt
they'd mind. anyone object?

> PS: I hope there will be a win32 version of monotone so I can use it
> at work !

one of a long list of things to do, but yes, it's of high priority.
(it'd be done much sooner if I had been smart and installed the
version of windows I bought on a machine other than my normal desktop,
so I could do a safe VNC session to it without a reboot cycle. sigh.)

-graydon