The main repository is in Subversion.
Now I want to work on a second patch.
What to do?
Toss my current patch out, revert, and work on another patch.
If this was a distributed system?
I would just commit locally. I would then work on a new patch. When the patch was committed to the main system I would just pick it up with a pull. I would never notice the issue because the remote patch would come in and be merged locally.
And what about the process where I work on a patch in pieces and commit along the way?
Well you can forget about that with a non-distributed system.
The solution to my problem? It looks like Fedora has SVK packages. With those I should be able to get around all the limitations for the remote server being Subversion.
What do I want?
The remote server to be Mercurial (or any other modern system...).
If you go back a decade I adored CVS. Compared to the options at the time it was a winner.
Today? Not so much.