Comment 1 for bug 316729

I agree that 'bzr clone' ought to be able to clone a repository, not just a branch. More generally, I'd like us to think hard about "branch groups" and support duplicating those via the clone command. In Bazaar, we can support layouts like:

  project/
    release-X/
      X.trunk/
      X.foo/
   release-Y/
     Y.trunk/
     Y.bar/

where project/ is a shared repository, release.*/ are plain directories and [XY].* are bzr branches. I want to be able to say stuff like:

* get me all the Python-2.6 branches
* get me all the "QA" branches

Furthermore, I think clone ought to respect the source structure, i.e. if I "bzr clone Y.bar", it ought to create a directory called project/release-Y/Y.bar and make project a shared repository. (If I just want a branch, I can use the existing branch command: clone will no longer just be an alias for branch under this proposal.) Projects frequently have groups of branches and users can benefit by following a consistent structure based on these groups.

Done right, a generalised clone command like this would make using Bazaar the "right" way easier.