On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 12:39:34AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
> I would like to hear some comments about the following. Since the git
> repositories contain all the history, if a non-free file slips in and
> is discovered after many commits were made, it will be a pain to
> extirpate it. For the moment, non-free software is allowed on Alioth,
> so if the file is legally redistributable, it is possible to ignore
> it. But what will the project manage that kind of situation after the
> format ’3.0 (git)’ will be accepted in our Archive?
This precise topic has been discussed at the vcs-pkg BOF at DebConf10,
if you are keen about the subject I suggest you to have a look either at
the video or at the minutes posted by Martin Krafft on the vcs-pkg
mailing list (sorry, I'm too lazy right now to look up the links :-P).
Still, here is a very brief summary of what have been said there, to the
benefit of other readers.
- Do not anticipate problems "too much". It is likely that any complaint
about redistribution violation by copyright owners will be satisfied
by removing the violation from the "current" version of the
incriminated VCS.
- In cases where this is not enough (as far as we knew back then, no
such case has been notified in Debian $VCSs thus far), git does
provide a way to automatically extirpate the incriminated content from
history ("git filter-branch"). The mechanism does rewrite history, so
it has the same drawbacks of "git rebase", but in real cases of gun
pointed against you to fix the past, you can use it as a way out.
- In the (currently unlikely) future scenario of '3.0 (git)' packages in
the archive, it would be enough to remove packages whose history
contain at least one affected branches and replace them with new
versions (via stable uploads or the heck) with history rewritten.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...........| ..: |.... Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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