It should be possible to allocate more than one branch to a release series

[Matthew East]

It's only currently possible to link one existing branch to a release series. It should be possible to link more than one.

For example, the Ubuntu Documentation project has a number of different branches for each Ubuntu derivative: ubuntu-docs, kubuntu-docs, xubuntu-docs and edubuntu-docs. While we could start a project for each of these, we are concerned that this would fragment the group and create unnecessary maintenance, particularly in circumstances where it is already rather artificial for the project to have had to create an "upstream project", rather than being able to work within the Ubuntu project (which is the only place the group's work is published).

As a result we'd like to be able to register a branch for each derivative to a release series.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Tim, this is the multi-series example I was talking about.

[Tim Penhey (thumper)]

I see what you mean, but I'd have to consider the implications. There are a number of design decisions around how series and branches are linked, and this isn't a trivial change.

With the normal situation, a user is able to get the (singular) series branch by going 'bzr branch lp:project/series', so in your case,
'bzr branch lp:ubuntu-core-doc/gutsy'. This is no longer the case if there are multiple branches assigned to the series.

However saying that, I can see why you'd want multiple branches associated with a series, so more thought needs to into this.

[Matthew East (mdke)]

Tim, thanks for the comment. I totally see why this is a tricky one. I wonder if it would be possible to resolve the "bzr branch lp" issue by having one bzr branch as the primary one associated with the series, which would respond to:

bzr branch lp:ubuntu-doc/hardy

If wished, you could make it possible to get the other (secondary) branches using something like:

bzr branch lp:ubuntu-doc/hardy#edubuntu-hardy
bzr branch lp:ubuntu-doc/hardy#kdubuntu-hardy
bzr branch lp:ubuntu-doc/gutsy#xubuntu-hardy

[Tim Penhey (thumper)]

We are looking at making the branch names need to be unique over a product, so that would mean you'd be able to go:

bzr branch lp:ubuntu-doc/edubuntu-hardy
bzr branch lp:ubuntu-doc/kubuntu-hardy
bzr branch lp:ubuntu-doc/xubuntu-hardy

to get the branches.

I guess the "real" way to do this is to make ubuntu-doc a project group and having different projects for the different derivative documentation, but I can see why you don't necessarily want to do that.

[Robert Collins (lifeless)]

I'm going to won'tfix this: bzr itself wants to be able to talk about N branches as part of one commit - so the way to do this (syncronised multi-branch stuff) is to use nested trees in bzr, and the root tree defines everything.