Re: Stability of git-archive, breaking (?) the Github universe, and a possible solution

From: Raymond E. Pasco <ray@ameretat.dev>
Date: Feb 1, 2023, 12:17 UTC
Message-ID: <8452eb684b212b1e364bdc4709d4b202@ameretat.dev>
In-Reply-To: <230201.86pmatr9mj.gmgdl@evledraar.gmail.com>

February 1, 2023 4:40 AM, "Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason" <avarab@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> As people have come to rely on the exact "deflate"
> implementation "git archive" promises to invoke the system's
> "gzip" binary by default, under the assumption that its output
> is stable. If that's no longer the case you'll need to complain
> to whoever maintains your local "gzip".

Surely if reproducibility of .tar.gz files is the goal,"invoke whatever arbitrary binary on $PATH happens to be called gzip" is an poor solution.

It is only even possible to consider stabilizing gzip output as a goal for Git (although this seems ill-advised for the reasons Brian already discussed) in the post-2.38 world where git is doing the gzipping.

If one has the requirement to substitute one's own specific compressor, there is an option for that.