From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Thomas Rast Subject: Re: Does content provenance matter? Date: Mon, 7 May 2012 10:23:38 +0200 Message-ID: <878vh4flh1.fsf@thomas.inf.ethz.ch> References: <1336250956.54413.YahooMailClassic@web121505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Cc: To: Kelly Dean X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Mon May 07 10:23:57 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1SRJEZ-0002QR-9V for gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org; Mon, 07 May 2012 10:23:55 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755562Ab2EGIXu (ORCPT ); Mon, 7 May 2012 04:23:50 -0400 Received: from edge10.ethz.ch ([82.130.75.186]:30951 "EHLO edge10.ethz.ch" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755484Ab2EGIXt (ORCPT ); Mon, 7 May 2012 04:23:49 -0400 Received: from CAS10.d.ethz.ch (172.31.38.210) by edge10.ethz.ch (82.130.75.186) with Microsoft SMTP Server (TLS) id 14.2.298.4; Mon, 7 May 2012 10:23:46 +0200 Received: from thomas.inf.ethz.ch.ethz.ch (78.110.190.183) by cas10.d.ethz.ch (172.31.38.210) with Microsoft SMTP Server (TLS) id 14.1.355.2; Mon, 7 May 2012 10:23:45 +0200 In-Reply-To: <1336250956.54413.YahooMailClassic@web121505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> (Kelly Dean's message of "Sat, 5 May 2012 13:49:16 -0700 (PDT)") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.3 (gnu/linux) X-Originating-IP: [78.110.190.183] Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Kelly Dean writes: > [copying B/X over to C/X is not recorded as such], on the theory that > just content, not provenance, is what matters. > [merging branches *is* recorded], on the theory that not only content, > but also provenance, matters. > The basic question is, if provenance doesn't matter, then why does a > git commit record its parent(s)? Why not omit this information, and > figure it out at search time (by looking at all commits with older > timestamps), the same as you're supposed to figure out renames at > search time and figure out the movement of lines within/among files at > search time (by looking at all files in the parent commit(s))? What's the difference between the following series of commits? Foo Bar Revert Bar and Foo You claim that they're the same, because the tree state after each is the same. But I learned that Bar was broken, and recorded it for all to see. -- Thomas Rast trast@{inf,student}.ethz.ch