On Tue, Aug 14, 2007 at 09:07:54PM +0200, Ray Leach wrote: > Adam J. Richter wrote: [...] > > netfilter appears to be the only part of the linux kernel that > >contains file names that differ only by capitalization. [...] > > > > File names that collide when compared case insensitively > >result in errors in the use of TortoiseSVN on Windows clients using a > >subversion source tree that has a copy of the linux kernel checked in. [...] > > Thanks Adam > > This appears to be an OS specific and not a subversion issue. The > subversion server allows you to check in duplicate filenames with > different case. The problem comes in when you try and check the code out > again on an OS which is case insensitive (ala Windows). See this link on > the Tigris website for more info : > http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/ReadMsg?listName=dev&msgNo=38144 > > Bottom line is, if the code was checked into the repository > successfully, then it would have been done from a client on an OS that > supports case sensitivity and probably was expected to be checked out on > a compatible OS. Thanks for the link to that discussion. The sitation arose with an automated merge someone was attempting from Windows on a large source tree that included a linux kernel source subtree. If I understand correctly, it appears that TortoiseSVN from Windows cannot currently safely do merges of Linux source trees, due to the naming capitalization collisions in netfilter. It also may effect the ability of someone working on Windows to quickly check the effected parts of the linux kernel source tree from this version control system or, even without a version control system, just unpacking a linux source tar file. For the purposes of the netfilter list, I just wanted to bring the downsides of these caplitalization collisions to everyone's attention in the hopes that they might be eliminated in the course of future development, especially if some other occasion for renaming things arises, as has occurred with the transition to "ip tools", and the ipchains to iptables transition. Adam Richter P.S. Going a bit off topic for the netfilter list, TortoiseSVN is designed to access a unix-supporting version control system (subversion) from Windows. I understand that the capitalization collision problem is not limited to TortoiseSVN, but, fall back to some name when such problems occur would be pretty central to TortoiseSVN's purpose (as opposed to accomodating VMS naming support as was mentioned in the thread you identified), regardless of whether the netfilter capitalization collisions get fixed.
