Proposal for branch restructuring for intrepid

[Jordan Mantha]

Matthew East wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've had a couple of thoughts for improving the branch structure for
> ubuntu-intrepid (and also for the other derivatives, if everyone
> agrees). I'd like to hear your thoughts on them.
> 
> 1. Remove translated xml from the tree.
> 
> The main reason our branches are so large is that the xml for each
> document is reproduced many multiple times because of all the
> translations. We can cut down on this immensely by removing translated
> xml completely from the branch, leaving only the po files, and
> creating the xml at build time rather than in advance. This would be
> relatively easy to do (albeit with a slight amendments to the
> procedure for fixing mistakes in translations).

I think this is a good idea. In the least you can have a script that 
creates the translated .xml when you create the source package if it's a 
pain to do it at actual .deb build time.

> 2. Rationalise structure
> 
> Since we moved to separate branches for derivatives, there have been
> quite a few things that we can tidy up. Examples include the presence
> of an unnecessary "ubuntu" directory even though it's an ubuntu
> branch, and the fact that we have two "libs" directories and a
> "common" directory performing essentially identical functions.
> 
> I'd like to rework things. There are essentially two ways we can do it.
> 
> (a) Put all the documents in the top level. This is my preferred
> option, so the branch would look like this:
> 
> /about-ubuntu
> /add-applications
> ...
> /debian
> ...
> /libs
> ...
> /serverguide
> 
> and so on. The stuff currently in "common" would be merged with "libs"
> and would probably include the various scripts we have.
> 

I like this option. It should make a lot more sense to contributors. 
Only question is about maintaining common material for derivative 
branches. Right now I just check common/ and libs/ in the ubuntu-hardy 
branch for changes to merge into the edubuntu branch. If the the various 
common/ and libs/  directories where to be merged how do you think this 
would effect derivatives? My guess would be that it might make things a 
bit more complicated but really wouldn't matter much. Derivatives might 
just end up shipping more than they need.

-Jordan