Re: Representing Debian Metadata in Git

From: Chris Hofstaedtler <zeha@debian.org>
Date: Aug 21, 2024, 21:37 UTC
Message-ID: <gbgpxxpikhkykvhug4ugbufqm6bdh44ygiknpzc3khalibwutk@jlebwg4vsvjt>
In-Reply-To: <eb963843-9e2c-49f2-911f-fa36f33f9bfd@debian.org>

Hi Simon,

* Simon Richter <sjr@debian.org> [240820 09:11]:

> One of the long-standing issues is that there are multiple ways Debian
> packaging can be represented in a git tree, and none of them are optimal.

[..]

Show 7 quoted lines

> A possible implementation would be a type of Git "user extension" object
> that contains
> 
>  - an extension name
>  - an object type (interpreted by the extension)
>  - type-tagged references to other objects
>  - other type-tagged data

[..]

> Any feelings/objections/missed requirements?

In the current DEP14/DEP18 discussions a lot of discussion was had about how we should represent Debian things in git; your mail also goes into this direction.

My *feeling* is we should do the opposite - that is, represent less Debian stuff in git, and especially do it in less Debian-specific ways. IOW, no git extensions, no setup with multiple branches that contain more or less unrelated things, etc.

I think we should move more towards a setup that is easily understood by people not closely following our Debian-specific things. We should avoid surprising things, again that would include the multiple branches and any git extensions.

Before pushing for new ways of representing Debian stuff in git, I think it would be a good idea to learn from all the other distros and distro-like systems successfully using git [1]. Debian is not the only distro that wants to use git to capture changes and encourage contributions to its packages.

Chris

[1] alpine, homebrew, freebsd ports come to mind immediately. nixos and others too.