Do what e.g. Mercurial does: report that the copies are too different for automatic merge, and punt the problem back to the user.
In other words, you are right that there is no solution in the general case, but that should not necessarily deter us from looking for a solution that works in 90% of cases.
Do what e.g. Mercurial does: report that the copies are too different for automatic merge, and punt the problem back to the user.
In other words, you are right that there is no solution in the general case, but that should not necessarily deter us from looking for a solution that works in 90% of cases.