Re: [PATCH 1/3] upload-pack: send the HEAD information

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 8, 2013, 17:27 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqli351u7r.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <20130908071359.GJ14019@sigill.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

> It somehow feels a little weird to me that we would output the
> information about refs/foo on the HEAD line.

I see that you realized why the above is not the case in the downthread; the capability list is not about describing HEAD. The list happens to be on the line for HEAD merely because HEAD is the first ref.

Unfortunately, the "read and replace capability if we see one" (not "read and update capability with newly discovered one on a second and subsequent capability list") is a restriction imposed by existing reader side code that are deployed on the wild, so we need to stick to it until we revamp the protocol in a backward incompatible way (which has been discussed a few times; websearch for "who speaks first" in the list archive).