"git ubuntu" wrappers [was: What to do with .git directories in source package uploads?]

[Ian Jackson]

Robie Basak writes ("Re: "git ubuntu" wrappers [was: What to do with .git directories in source package uploads?]"):
> I disagree here. We don't need to "hope". I don't expect the build to
> see the importer's git history. It should be invisible to the build
> process, and I intend to make our "git ubuntu build" wrapper make it
> invisible.

I think this is the key difference in our points of view.

I look forward to a future where users routinely build Debian-format
source packages from their distro's provided git history.  For a user,
in the most usual and simplest case, these will usually be in-tree
builds run from the git working directory using dpkg-buildpackage.

In this future world, the "distro's" .git (ie, in your case, your
importer's) is present in the user's working tree.

I doubt that there are a significant number of package build systems
which rely on the presence or absence (or specific contents) of .git,
(or for that matter of ..git).  If such things exist right now they
need to be fixed ASAP - but I very much doubt they do.

Building historical versions ad-hoc may need an ad-hoc "detransform"
step; but in general, building historical versions is going to be
quite hard anyway for a whole host of reasons.  Building historical
versions in bulk may need the detransform to be automated, but this
should be confined to this archaeology exercise.

Ian.