git 1.6.4 learned 'git submodule add --reference dir' as a means to make initializing git submodules use (MUCH) less bandwidth and disk space by borrowing references from an existing on-disk repository, rather than cloning from scratch. I would like to modify the bootstrap script to honor $GNULIB_SRCDIR, if set, as the argument to the --reference directory, to take advantage of this git feature. Keep in mind that if someone sets GNULIB_SRCDIR, it should be to a master repository that does not get rewound, to avoid issues with the client repositories ever depending on references that might go stale during garbage collection in the reference repository (but with gnulib's linear development model, that is probably not too much of a concern). Any objections?
Additionally, the m4 bootstrap script (m4 does not use the gnulib bootstrap script) is able to perform the same operation even with older git-submodule that does not support the --reference action, by breaking things down into multiple steps and using git-clone --reference instead. Is that worth incorporating into my proposed patch for gnulib's bootstrap, or should we just assume that git 1.6.4 or newer is widespread enough to not be worth the hassle? -- Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well! Eric Blake e...@byu.net
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