Re: Motd message on git cloning

[Adam Stankiewicz <sheerun@sher.pl>]

It we would agree that .git/motd should serve as MOTD file then at the
beginning there would be no noise at all, because currently no
repository contains that file.

I don't think developers would place there non-critical information
about the repository. The community would blame them for that.

Also if one does not like any additional noise, no one prevents him
from adding --no-motd flag as the default.

Thank you for attention.

On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 5:34 PM, Drew Northup <n1xim.email@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 11:04 AM, Adam Stankiewicz <sheerun@sher.pl> wrote:
>> I'm dreaming about git feature that shows custom message on git clone.
>> It would be extremely helpful for informing the person cloning about
>> init scripts he/she need to execute (for example submodule inits or
>> hooks set up). For now there is no way to make sure cloning person
>> will receive such message (unless he/she will read the README).
>
> So we should clog up the output (which may contain important error
> messages) just to protect the user from themselves?
>
>> The server does not need to know if it's fetch or clone, if programmer
>> executes git clone on client side, then the MOTD message would be
>> shown.
>>
>> I think good candidate for MOTD message is .git/description (because
>> for now no one seems to care about setting repository description).
>> Another option is to introduce .git/motd file that would consist of
>> some maximum number of non-control ASCII characters.
>>
>> I don't really see any security concerns. Git could filter any control
>> characters from MOTD out, and automation script could add --no-motd
>> flag. The could also be limit on MOTD file size so no one could
>> "flood" the terminal window with MOTD messages.
>
> While I think that it is helpful and sometimes important to set the
> description (especially for public repositories) I suspect that if
> somebody is cloning it then they already have a good chance of knowing
> what _should_ be in that file. This isn't a text-interactive session
> on an FTP server of yore.
>
>> Also it's important to me that such message would be shown
>> automatically by default and could be turned off, not the other way
>> (for example --motd flag).
>
> Ummm....NO. I cannot see this being an improvement for enough users to
> justify the extra noise.
>
> Granted, I am not the definitive word on much of anything around here,
> but I cannot see this making much sense in the big picture of things.
> If you wanted to make this change to something more like Google's
> "repo" wrapper script that would make at least some modicum of sense
> to me.
>
> --
> -Drew Northup
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> "As opposed to vegetable or mineral error?"
> -John Pescatore, SANS NewsBites Vol. 12 Num. 59