Comment 16 for bug 116094

I don't want to recommend users use 'cp -a' because it doesn't lock the source. Under the right circumstances (source and target both local and both outside a shared repo), 'bzr branch' could always do exactly that under the covers after locking the 2 branches. I think that would meet the expectations of most users wrt what clone/branch does, though it doesn't met everyone's - see above.

Unless we make that optimisation (either implicitly or via an option), I can't see how bzr can get within 50% of hg clone --pull. If we do make that optimisation, we may even be quicker.