From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:40:57 GMT
Subject: Re: Submodules implementation
Message-ID: <7vvddnwjmu.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <201002240115.53771.bartoschek@gmx.de>

Christoph Bartoschek <bartoschek@gmx.de> writes:

> I see that in the submodule there is a .git directory with its own objects.  
> This does not look like as if the submodule objects are part of the 
> superproject.

Because they largely aren't.  submodules are freestanding projects on
their own right.

One of the primary design decisions was to support the use of a
superproject without having to clone/checkout all the submodules.

You may want to check earlier design discussion thread:

  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/31941/focus=32944

It is a huge thread and some of the messages there might be nothing more
than uninformed and unworkable handwaving, except for the ones from Linus
and some others.