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

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2025 11:24:44 -0800

Usman Akinyemi <[email-masked]> writes:

>> 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.
> Hi Junio,
>
> Thanks for this.
>
> So instead of having a .format config, we should have a .string config
> which just
> takes a string and uses it as the value for the `os-version` capability ?

Ah, sorry, I totally misread your patch.  I somehow thought you _already_
have the "any string goes" variant implemented in the patch being reviewed.

If there isn't any such thing, then my preference is add neither of
the configuration knobs and let the system provided function give a
not-too-specific os-version string (like "Linux").  Once people gain
experiences with that feature, then we will learn more about what
degree of customizability is required.

Sorry for the confusion.