Subject: Re: [PATCH 3/4] connect: advertise OS version

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2025 07:46:52 -0800

Usman Akinyemi <[email-masked]> writes:

> Instead of having .format that will allow user to have multiple
> variation or different placeholder,
> we can allow it to take only specific values for examples:
> - "full" which would mean the same thing as  the result of `uname -srvm`,
> - "default" or "short" which would mean the same thing as  the result
> of `uname -s`,
> - "medium"  which would mean the same thing as  the result of `uname -sr`.
>
> What is your thought about this ?

I think two-level is good enough.  One level is "yes, please give
the minimum that would not offend even the privacy-conscious folks
(like 'Linux', 'macOS', 'Windows' etc.)" or "no, please do not show
os-version at all".  The other is "Please use this exact string."
We do not need anything more elaborate.

The reasoning behind this conclusion goes like this.

First of all, I mentioned "registry of canonical os-version strings"
to help the users of the "Please use this string" so their server do
not have to suffer from different names and spellings to identify
the same class of clients.

But the server operators that *want* such tighter control *and* are
capable of enforcing their choice to their users are probably $CORP
in-house operators.  They can tell their employees what string to
use, or they may even do that in /etc/gitconfig on the machines they
give to their users.  In other words, they do not need our help at
all.

At least that is my thought.  Others may have different opinions.

Thanks.