Re: ANNOUNCE: Debian build scripts on a public Monotone server

["Ludovic Brenta" <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> I wasn't clear enough about what I mean by "email changeset".
> The same content that is needed by mtn sync
> could be passed in a mailbox style, decoupling operations.
> (Going from rendezvous to something else, in Ada terms.)
> I wasn't thinking of sending a standard patch in some email,
> I was thinking of using SMTP as a "Monotone sync packet wrapper".
> Monotone merging wouldn't have to be changed I think, if you follow
> the  "commit first" policy that Monotone recommends.

Ah, now I understand what you meant. That would be much less efficient.
The benefit of synchronous communications is that each side can ask the
other what it is missing, and only send the necessary information for
both sides to come up to sync. With asynchronous comms, the sending
side has to make assumptions about what the receiving side already has
in its database. That's unsafe.

Monotone did use to support syncing over HTTP and NNTP, but dropped
that for efficiency.

> The GPG keys could be associated with the permission settings in
> your Monotone configuration. Then if mtn receives an "email sync
> message" the software knows what to do with it, just like when it
> operates in "normal synchronous sync mode".
>
> Just an idea, to overcome some issues:
>
> 1/ For mtn sync between two people,
>    you need both ends at the same time.
> 2/ For mtn sync between you and a server,
>    you need both ends at the same time.
> 3/ For 2, you need a server that runs a Monotone server process.

That's reasonable; it's just not implemented now in Monotone. If you
insist on asynchronous updates, you can always send patches by email
and have a human commit them manually on the other end, or investigate
Darcs.

> If your ISP/company/... offers 3, that's perfect.

Yes, Ada-France does now :) and a couple of others, see
http://www.venge.net/monotone/wiki/Hosting

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.