Subject: Re: Make Gitweb behave like Apache mod_userdir

From: "J.H." <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:59:20 -0800

Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Sylvain Rabot <[email-masked]> writes:
> 
>>> Wouldn't it be a good idea to somehow make this work well together with
>>> the --user-path feature of git-daemon?
>>>
>>> Perhaps the recommended name given in the example shouldn't be ~/gitweb,
>>> but more like ~/public_git, as this is like ~/public_html but for git
>>> repositories.  Then the end users will browse
>> As I said, it's configuration :)
> 
> Wrong answer.
> 
> Exactly because it is configurable, the document that outlines the
> recommended practice should suggest the best convention.  My point was
> that it is likely to be tied to "git"-ness of the specified directory
> under $HOME/, not limited to "gitweb"-ness, and it is wrong to recommend a
> name tied to "gitweb"-ness in this document.

For starters I think overriding the /~<user> (specifically the ~ here) 
is going to be a bad idea no matter what you do and gives the wrong 
impression about what / how the request is being responded to.  You 
might want to try and pick a different delimiter or re-work the rule so 
that you could have something like:

	http://git.kernel.org/<gitweb urls>
	http://git.kernel.org/user/<gitweb urls>

Your also, likely, going to need to take into account things like 
index.cgi and gitweb.cgi in the url as things like:

http://git.kernel.org/?p=bluetooth/bluez-gnome.git;a=summary
http://git.kernel.org/gitweb.cgi?p=bluetooth/bluez-gnome.git;a=summary

are likely to be correct for almost all installations.

I would agree with Junio on this, if your suggesting a possible practice 
you should focus on the best convention.  Making it depend on something 
like ~/gitweb doesn't make it clear or obvious enough to a user, or an 
administrator, that the directory is being exported for the world to 
see.  There is a reason it's called ~/public_html.

Keep in mind most people are going to read the documentation and 
copy/paste what they need and not change anything.

- John 'Warthog9' Hawley