[Boost-cmake] Discussion of Boost-cmake moving forward

Subject: [Boost-cmake] Discussion of Boost-cmake moving forward
From: Michael Jackson (mike.jackson_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-08-26 11:41:43

2010/8/24 Michael Jackson <mike.jackson_at_[hidden]>
I think we should have a branch for each boost release where people  
can go to get
boost with cmake and only have changes to the cmake files themselves
and not really the boost source files.

Having a structure reflecting upstream Boost seems a good thing, i.e.:
* Git pristine-release reflecting SVN branches/release
* Git pristine-master reflecting SVN trunk
* Git pristine-1.44.0 reflecting SVN tags/release/Boost_1_44_0

Then, having the same structure for CMake-ified Boost seems also not  
too bad:
* Git cmake-release reflecting CMake on top of SVN branches/release
* Git cmake-master reflecting CMake on top of SVN trunk
* Git cmake-1.44.0 reflecting CMake on top of SVN tags/release/ 
Boost_1_44_0

Now, I am not sure which is the best, between having in the cmake-xxx  
branches only the CMake additional files, or the whole CMake-ified  
Boost. I would choose the second option, as Git helps a lot in  
maintaining such a structure: upstream Boost patches are easily  
applied on the CMake-ified version (by Git, almost transparently).  
That option has the advantage for the developers to be complete: they  
do not have to fetch on one side Boost files, and on the other one  
CMake files, and then merge both file structures.

The main gitorious.org/boost has an SVN tracking branch. Troy would  
like someone else to take over
that for the time being. He runs a CRON script every so often that  
pulls changes from SVN and pushes those to the git repo. I think I  
have SVN write access to the main Boost repo. Maybe I should be the  
gatekeeper for changes to the cmake files that get posted to gitorious?

Gitorious does not allow to import SVN repositories. So, I was  
wondering how Troy was doing the synchronisation. GitHub allows  
Subversion imports, but I'm not sure that it allows for  
synchronisation, after initial import.
So, the only way is maybe to run, like Troy does, a cron somewhere on  
an Internet machine (I got one, if needed).

What type of developer are we serving? The dev who wants to work with  
Boost and Git would seem to be the case.

I think it's more open than that: all the developers wanting to build  
Boost with something more standard than BJam. For instance, I was not  
a big fan of Git, and I "converted myself" for Boost-CMake...
I guess that all the Linux and MacOSX distribution packagers will be  
interested, as CMake becomes increasingly a standard way to build  
packages. I "work for" Fedora/RedHAt, but Debianers, Ubuntuers,  
"Madrivaners", etc, may as well be interested.
Plus all the occasional developers finding BJam rather difficult to  
understand (and to integrate with their own software!).

I think the main Boost SVN repo does retain the CMake files so anyone  
can get the boost with cmake from the main boost site.

There was a discussion on the Boost ML a few months ago, and they  
decided to remove support for CMake (and to remove the corresponding  
CMake files), saying that some external developers were maintaining  
that non-official way of building Boost...
So, let's assume that upstream Boost will not help us that much.

Cheers

Denis