Adding a 'version' command to the server (was: git@vger.kernel.org)

From: Lea Wiemann <lewiemann@gmail.com>
Date: Jun 27, 2008, 23:07 UTC
Message-ID: <486572BC.9070201@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <7viqvupm3l.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>

Junio C Hamano wrote:

> It is still possible to connect to older remote end with new clients, but
> you have to explicitly ask for "git-upload-pack" by using --upload-pack=
> option when running "git fetch"

Now that the current git won't work with older servers anyway, what about using this opportunity to add a 'version' command to the server? With such a command, such problems would seem to be quite easily avoidable in the future, since the client can discriminate based on the server's version.

I'm not sure how to implement this (the problems seem to be that (a) it needs to work with git-shell and real shells, and (b) that older clients must not be supplied with a version number in order not to break them), but perhaps this is worth pondering.

Apologies if this has been discussed before.

-- Lea