Proposal: Provide diffs between consensuses

[Peter Palfrader]

On Mon, 23 Jun 2008, Nick Mathewson wrote:

> >   - Do we agree on using the ed patch format?
> 
> I finally figured out what questions I wanted to answer this question
> with. :)
> 
> There are two things we want in a patch format:
> 
>   1. There needs to be a spec for generating and applying patches.
>      The spec for generating them needs to be deterministic (or have a
>      deterministic variant) so that authorities can all generate the
>      same patch.

Why?  Nobody needs to sign patches.  Even directory caches can create
the patches if we want.  If all works out the end result will be a
properly signed consensus.


>   2. There should be a good Free Software library (3BSD-like license,
>      ideally) to generate and apply patches.

Not that I have found one yet, but I didn't look too closely.