Re: Regarding the depreciation of ssh+git/git+ssh protocols

From: Eli Schwartz <eschwartz@archlinux.org>
Date: Mar 31, 2021, 04:23 UTC
Message-ID: <0206a8b6-8b07-24c8-9513-ce638339eafc@archlinux.org>
In-Reply-To: <YFJ/g2N+s1V3/qMo@google.com>

On 3/17/21 6:15 PM, Jonathan Nieder wrote:

Show 13 quoted lines

> Hi,
> 
> Eli Schwartz wrote:
> 
>> I'm not especially attached to the proposal. I'm a maintainer for one
>> of these package managers that currently special-case git+https?:// and
>> rewrite the url that git sees, which has worked adequately for a long
>> time.
> 
> This is useful context.  What URL forms does this package manager
> support (e.g., do you have a link to its documentation)?  What would
> the effect be for the package manager and its users if Git started
> supporting a git+https:// synonym for https://?

https://archlinux.org/pacman/PKGBUILD.5.html#VCS

We support cloning arbitrary version controlled sources via either

vcs://

or vcs+proto://

but not

proto+vcs://

so that encompasses git:// or git+https:// or git+ssh:// and also permits hg+https or svn+https:// or bzr+http:// or fossil+https://

(ignore the documentation not mentioning fossil, this is a development branch addition and obviously the docs are for the stable release)

We then do prefix removal of everything before the plus sign since currently no VCS supports this directly (I think?), but we could remove that pass from our git source plugin if git implemented it internally.

Implementing https+git:// as a synonym for https:// is IMO confusing, so I don't intend to implement it even if git does. I think one way to specify the VCS + transport protocol is enough... and prefix removal is easier than removing the middle of the string.

The net effect would be, I guess, less code in the package manager, and users would be able to go to a public registry of source packages like https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/pacman-git, see the clickable link under "Sources (5)" and copy/paste that into a `git clone` command line without knowing they need to edit the link first.

-- 
Eli Schwartz
Arch Linux Bug Wrangler and Trusted User