[RFC] Meta-branch

[Robert Collins]

The discussion about tags and earlier about the location of subtree-root
branch storage/branches seems to coalesce into a single prerequisite
feature: a branch of data about the users branch. This data should
propogate, and people should be able to record decisions in it without
'committing' to their source code.

So heres a proposal for a meta-branch feature.

A meta branch records data about a branch. It coexists with the branch
at the same URL and has:
 * Its own 'meta-last-revision'
 * One weave/knit for each thing it records, today that will be 'tags'
and 'subtree-locations' and stored in the repository
as .bzr/repository/tags and .bzr/repository/subtree-locations
 * Conflicts in meta-branch pull operations are recorded
in .bzr/checkout/somefilename.
 * Operations on these files - i.e. bzr vitags - will validate the file
and commit them immediately to the meta-branch.
 * conflict resolution on them will only do a commit to the meta-branch
when all the meta-data is resolved.
 * if possible all the files in the metabranch will be merged in the
same way, but that is not a requirement.


This should allow simple implementations of tags and subtree locations,
with minimal performance impact and the ability to share tags and update
the locations of subtrees for old branches without 'dummy' commits.

Rob
-- 
GPG key available at: <http://www.robertcollins.net/keys.txt>.
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