Branch with moving base

[Ben Bucksch <be...@beonex.com>]

Hi,

there's a feature I'd really need in an VCS. I don't know (neither did I 
check), if this has been discussed before, please excuse (and tell me), 
if you did already. Please also excuse my lacking knowledge about VCS.

I'm running Beonex, which creates an open-source browser based on 
Mozilla. We don't just use Mozilla, but modify portions of the code. 
Also, we don't wait until a release is out, but try to release 
simultaneously, which means that we have to work based on a changing source.

The latter means that an import doesn't really work for us. What I 
envision is a branch that is based on another moving branch. I.e. there 
are 3 sources: The Mozilla source, our confirmed changes to it (i.e. the 
full source for Beonex Communicator) and the working directory of the 
developer. (Maybe, there could also be a branch based on the Beonex 
Communicator source, i.e. 4 and more sources.) We need to comfortably 
create diffs between each of these. Also, it would be nice, if the base 
source could not only change itself, but the pointer to be base source 
could also be changed manually. I.e. the base is HEAD first, but then 
changed to a Mozilla release branch and later back to the HEAD.

It is correct that conflicts in the repository might arise when the base 
source changes and it conflicts with the changes in a branch based on 
that. But I see no problem in that, at least no larger problem than that 
what exists already. In the case of a conflict, the repository could 
change the branch file to contain the output of a conflicting diff, with 
all the ">>>"s and "<<<"s. When the developer updates his local copy of 
the branch, he would get a note that conflicts were in that file and be 
fed with the file containing the conflict. He would resolve it manually 
and commit the merged file to the branch. That's exactly as much work as 
it is today (just that it will be more easy to share the work of manual 
merging).

If I was unclear in any part, please ask.

BTW: I am glad that someone works on an improved open-source VCS. It is 
desperately needed.

Ben


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