[p4] best practices question for open-source patch development

[berbsd berbsd]

On 4/26/06, Jonathan Biggar <jon at floorboard.com> wrote:
>
> berbsd berbsd wrote:
> >  I am looking for advice on how to use perforce for developing a set of
> > source code patches on top of an open-source component. A patch can
> require
> > multiple people to work on and several patches can be created to isolate
> > specific features that need to be pushed to the open-source community.
>
> I think the best approach is to reserve a mainline branch that you use
> to checkin the original open source project and ongoing official patches
> and updates, and do your work in one or more other branches with
> periodic and controlled merges from the mainline.


this means one work branch per patch and only the work specific to the patch
is added to the branch. However, some patches may depend on others (not
necessarily overlap) and this approach does not scale too well. The goal is
to keep the patches simple to facilitate their integration back into the
open-source tree. What do you think?