Allocation of new file format for testing

[James Pharaoh]

Hi,

Further to the issue I've raised here...

https://github.com/zbackup/zbackup/issues/141

...I'd like to raise a discussion about potential changes to the ZBackup
file format. I wonder if anyone has considered how file format changes
will be managed? It makes sense for there to be some kind of
coordination for this, so that numbers are globally allocated.

While I'd like to think that "version 2" would be agreed on by the
community and hashed out thoroughly, I'd also like to start playing
around with some new optional features myself in the near future.

For this reason, I wonder if it would be possible to agree on a version
number I can use for my experimental versions, perhaps a negative or
very high number? If/when the community is happy with a set of changes
to the file format, this can be made official and the number 2 added.

I imagine these would be optional features enabled on a per-repository
basis. I'm also happy to help ensure that these features are fully
supported by the main ZBackup implementation before any new file format
is agreed.

As mentioned in this issue, I think that it would be sensible to move to
an extensible file format, which would contain a list of named features
used. This would make it much easier to add new features in the future
which could be easily recognised, on a one-by-one basis, by any software
which accesses the repository, rather than needing to allocate a new
version number every time new features are added.

Comments? Who would take respoinsibility for this kind of thing?

Thanks,
James