Re: [PATCH] Remove restriction on notes ref base

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Shawn Pearce <spearce@spearce.org> writes:

> I didn't want to use refs/notes/bad-commits because its not really an
> annotation you would be looking at with git log.

Why not?  Within a repository with bad commits, you would want an option
to have them applied to bad commits you still have, no?

I am still torn with this patch, and I say "still" for a reason.  Even
though notes are implemented as commits, they are not commits on a part of
normal histories, and restriction of them within refs/notes hierarchy at
least is a safety measure (it is easy to loosen a restriction later, but
it is hard to let people loose first and then later restrict).  While a
purist in me says that GIT_NOTES_REF and command line option _should_
enforce the same restriction, keeping the more obscure GIT_NOTES_REF
interface a bit looser gives us an escape hatch.

As to remote interface, refs/remotes/$remotes/ hierarchy corresponds to
the local refs/heads/ interface, so I do not think we will change the
default mapping we document (and have "clone" prepare) to place notes
obtained from elsewhere in refs/remotes/ hierarchy (we do not do that for
tags neither), so I think Johan's point is an independent issue.