Re: categorization, documentation and packaging of "git core" commands

From: Todd Zullinger <tmz@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 7, 2018, 21:18 UTC
Message-ID: <20180207211830.GO1427@zaya.teonanacatl.net>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1802071529080.14481@localhost.localdomain>

Robert P. J. Day wrote:

> not to belabour this (and i'm sure it's *way* too late for that),
> but fedora has the following packaging scheme.  first, there's a bunch
> of stuff in "git-core", which has no dependencies on any other
> git-related packages.

The split in Fedora between git and git-core is done to minimize the dependencies required for a minimal git install. The initial reason was to to allow installing the git-core package on systems, in containers, etc. without requiring perl and its various dependencies to be installed.

The name git-core was not chosen to imply any official status as core versus contrib from upstream.

(Farther back in the past, the main git package (and the upstream tarball, IIRC) was named git-core due to conflicts with another tool named git (GNU interactive tools).)

Show 12 quoted lines

> so with fedora, "git" drags in "git-core" and a small number of
> additional git utilities. all of this leads one to wonder -- is there
> any comprehensible relationship between:
> 
>   1) commands that claim to be in the "git suite"
>   2) commands that come from contrib/
>   3) commands listed at
>      https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/
>   4) how different distros package all of the above
> 
> as i think we've noticed, it's not at all clear how git decides what
> is and isn't part of the "official" git suite.

I don't think there's any good reason to use the packaging of any distribution as the source for what the git project considers officially part of the suite. For that, you should look at the git source and particularly contrib/README. The first paragraph says:

    Although these pieces are available as part of the official git
    source tree, they are in somewhat different status.  The
    intention is to keep interesting tools around git here, maybe
    even experimental ones, to give users an easier access to them,
    and to give tools wider exposure, so that they can be improved
    faster.

If anything the Fedora packging does in the splitting or naming of the git packages is something the git project feels is incorrect or needlessly confusing, I (with my Fedora maintainer hat on) would be happy to make any changes I can to improve things.

-- 
Todd
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some god must protect drunkards and fools, there are so many of them
still around.