Subject: Re: [git patches] libata updates, GPG signed (but see admin notes)

From: Ted Ts'o <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2011 10:59:08 -0400

On Thu, Nov 03, 2011 at 12:09:55PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> I personally dislike it, and don't really think it's a wonderful thing
> at all. I really does have real downsides:
> 
>  - internal signatures really *are* a disaster for maintenance. You
> can never fix them if they need fixing (and "need fixing" may well be
> "you want to re-sign things after a repository format change")

Note that a repository format change will break a bunch of other
things as well, including references in commit descriptions ("This
fixes a regression introduced in commit 42DEADBEEF") So if SHA-1 is in
danger of failing in way that would threaten git's use of it (highly
unlikely), we'd probably be well advised to find a way to add a new
crypto checksum (i.e., SHA-256) in parallel, but keep the original
SHA-1 checksum for UI purposes.

>  - they are ugly as heck, and you really don't want to see them in
> 99.999% of all cases.

So we can make them be hidden from "git log" and "gik" by default.
That bit is a bit gross, I agree, but 3rd party verification really is
a good thing, which I'm hoping can be added in a relatively clean
fashion.

						- Ted