In this chapter, we covered how Bazaar can interact with other version control systems such as Subversion and Git through plugins. In this way, you can take advantage of the unique features of Bazaar that might be missing in other systems, such as creating local branches easily, or using advanced merging features and alternative remerge strategies, and browse the logs rendered beautifully in Bazaar Explorer. In case a direct interaction is not possible, we explained the option of migrating between repositories by using the fast-import method.

However, working with foreign repositories comes at a price—the initial branch conversion into native Bazaar format can be slow, and sometimes it might not work at all. Interactions with foreign branches are inevitably slower as compared to native Bazaar operations, due to the overhead of translation between protocols. You should also be aware of the differences between Bazaar and the foreign system, as well as the limitations of the plugins.

In the next chapter, we will explain about bzrlib and Bazaar's internals, and how to extend Bazaar's functionality by implementing custom plugins that hook into Bazaar's architecture.