The story ends this way: I've spent days writing migration code which
traverses the gigabytes of my various repositories and converts legacy
property names (the ones I've been using for years over DAV+SVN, not
knowing they were invalid in JavaHL) to "valid" Subversion property
names (according to the source code; there exist no public specifications).
Creating this throwaway migration code was many times over more work
than it would have been simply to loosen slightly the restrictions in
the Subversion client source code to be more liberal with property
names. On the other hand, writing this migration code was many times
over /less/ work than all the time and effort I would have spent trying
to get permission (or even interest) in modifying the Subversion source
code, or even to publish a specification.
I did get a bit of constructive discussion to at least understand the
issue, and I appreciate the "+1" I received for the concept of creating
a specification and making property name requirements consistent across
clients. But I have been given no authority to create any specification
or modify any code, and I suspect that three years later when I check
back on the issue, everything will be in the same situation it is today.
In addition, there exists the issue of legacy data created over DAV+SVN
not compatible with other clients. But with loads of work on my plate,
and having migrated my own data, I'm afraid I must be pragmatic: it's
not my problem anymore.
I love Subversion, and I wish the Subversion development community the best.
Sincerely,
Garret
On 1/23/2012 7:17 AM, C. Michael Pilato wrote:
On 01/23/2012 10:13 AM, Garret Wilson wrote:
By the lack of response am I to conclude that rigorous specification and
client interoperability are not considered high priorities on this list?
Conclude what you will. But a more accurate conclusion might be "I've only
allowed a single 'business day' for discussion of this thread, so perhaps I
should wait a bit longer for folks to chime in." I can't speak for others
of course, but I only *just* got around to reading your original post a few
minutes before this your follow-up hit the list.
