Comment 1 for bug 209025

Interesting idea. I don't know of this feature in other systems, but perhaps it is useful enough to include.

I will say that *most* people work around it by having a "template" file, which people then copy into the final value. Something like:

project.settings.template <= this file is versioned
project.settings <= this file is ignored (bzr ignore project.settings)

And you are expected to:
cp project.settings.template project.settings

as part of the setup process. If you already have a build step, you could hook in a:
if [ ! -e project.settings ]; then cp project.settings.template project.settings; fi

Or at least something like that.