From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 23:17:47 GMT
Subject: Re: Sources for 3.18-rc1 not uploaded
Message-ID: <CA+55aFyZ1Mzjdx+JsD4jmFnJo+xL8xLz5+mtbh+_25bCak-7hQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20141020222809.GB223410@vauxhall.crustytoothpaste.net>

On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 3:28 PM, brian m. carlson
<sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> wrote:
>
> It doesn't appear that the stability of git archive --format=tar is
> documented anywhere.  Given that, it doesn't seem reasonable to expect
> that any tar implementation produces bit-for-bit compatible output
> between versions.

The kernel has simple stability rules: if it breaks users, it gets
fixed or reverted. That is a damn good rule.

I realize that some other projects are crap, and don't care about
their users. I hope and believe that git is not in that sad group.

The whole "it's not documented" excuse is pure and utter bollocks.
Users don't care. And stability of data should be *expected*, not need
some random documentation entry to make it explicit.

                      Linus