Re: [Monotone-devel] Re: Future of monotone

[Markus Schiltknecht]

Hi Boris,

Boris wrote:
> * I need a kind of project branch to put several projects into the same 
> monotone database. I want everyone to be free to create new branches but 
> I don't want everyone to be so free that branches which are actually 
> different projects are mixed up. Putting every project into its own 
> database would be possible but is too much work (eg. it requires some 
> team members who work on several projects to synchronize several 
> databases all day).

Hm.. with proper branch names, netsync permissions and trust hooks, that 
should be possible. Or am I missing something here?

> * I also need something which I think is called policy branch here. I 
> need to set read-/write-permissions per project/branch. And these 
> permissions should be saved in the database and not in text files. The 
> idea that developers can synchronize their databases directly is great 
> (eg. I had setup a central monotone server which is moved to a new data 
> center and is now offline for too long). However it doesn't help if 
> everyone has to set permissions first. Even worse if they don't do it 
> developers might get access to projects/branches they should not have 
> access to.

Jup, that should be covered by the upcoming policy branches.

> The #1 reason why I introduced monotone at all (apart from the fact that 
> it is a distributed version control system) is that it is really very 
> easy to setup and use. No need to rely on and wait for system 
> administrators - developers are in full control of the whole system. The 
> cost-efficiency ratio is really good!

Good to hear.

> If it comes to GUIs I can imagine a kind of Windows shell extension 
> which could be used by managers to synchronize a folder with a monotone 
> server directly. While developers are in full control the problem is 
> that everyone else is not. I could imagine a shell extension which is 
> installed by managers. Then I send a .reg file to them which will add 
> some entries to their Windows registry (like name of the server to 
> synchronize with etc.). And then they are ready to go and see what their 
> developers are actually doing all day. If it was possible to develop 
> shell extensions in .NET I would have tried that quickly. But as 
> Microsoft doesn't recommend it I didn't have any time yet to come up 
> with some C++ code.

Just today I've stumbled across tortoise/hg. Maybe we could hang on and 
add monotone support there?

Regards

Markus