Re: Truly decentralised use of git?

2009/7/14 Kārlis Repsons [off-list ref]:

Hello,
git is just great with its possibility of decentralised using, but how can it
be done, given, that participants are all across the internet? IPv6? How is
it done with kernel?

I don't think "truly decentralised" is what you want[1]. For me, truly
decentralised is when all the repositories are equal, and in
particular there is no central repository to sync with.

Normally there is a "social" central repository, be it controlled by
one person (like the linux kernel) or by multiple people (like the
gnome git repositories). It does not mean it is not decentralised,
many people can (and do) have repositories spread across the internet
and the central repository can be moved from one place to another.

In a "truly decentralised" setup, every repository can sync any other
repository. So you just provide a public repository and sync with the
rest of repositories. It does not scale with a large number of
repositories, so it is easier just to declare some of the repositories
as central (like the Linus' repository and the subsystem
repositories).

In the linux kernel setup, there is a central repository, Linus'
repository, with its public repository at kernel.org, and the
subsystem repositories (x86, mm, usb,...) normally at kernel.org but
they can be anywhere else. Everybody syncs with Linus' repository, and
when you work in a specific subsystem you sync with the central one
and/or the subsystem repository.

HTH,
Santi