Re: [RFC PATCH 0/2] Allow adding .git files and directories

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Wed, Aug 19, 2020 at 12:09:11PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> "Randall S. Becker" <rsbecker@nexbridge.com> writes:
> 
> > Just putting my CSIO hat on here. We would need a system-wide setting to
> > prohibit users from using this capability.
> 
> Or just discard this patch, which is a lot simpler.  I don't see any
> need for this one.

Yes. Configurability is a lot more complicated than you might think.
Because it's not just system-wide, but _ecosystem_ wide.

Right now git-fsck complains about ".git" appearing in a tree, and that
check blocks people from pushing such trees to any hosting sites that
enable transfer.fsckObjects (which includes hosters like GitHub). So
you'd not only need to allow the behavior to be loosened for all of the
people using the feature, but you'd need to convince server-side hosters
to loosen their config. And because part of the purpose is to protect
downstream clients from attacks, I doubt that public hosters like GitHub
would do so.

It _could_ still be useful in a more isolated environment (e.g., your
company server that is serving only internal repos to employees). But I
have misgivings about a feature that lets people intentionally create
repositories whose history cannot ever interact with other users who
haven't set a special config flag. It's one thing to say "to take
advantage of this feature, we must all agree to have version X, or set
flag Y". But it's another to bake that restriction into the repository
history for all time.

-Peff