Mark Hammond writes:
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, but I believe it *is* possible for a solution to be found here which will keep Windows users happy. I'm guessing you haven't had much practical experience with this problem, so probably don't see this is clearly as Windows users do.
Mercurial is not only open source, it's written in Python. The problem is known to be hard in a practical sense, the existing solutions (written by non-Windows developers, of course) are judged to be insufficient by Windows users, and the non-Windows developers "probably don't see this is clearly as Windows users do." I think the implication is obvious. There will be no good solution until Windows users develop it. I don't see a good reason to wait for that. I do see good reason for non-Windows users to put up with some inconvenience during the "beta" phase of implementing that solution; it's important enough to be fast-tracked, and doesn't need to be perfect for everybody to be tried (though it should not be allowed to endanger repo content, which seems unlikely but needs care since it's a potential disaster).