Re: [PATCH v2 0/3] Teach fetch and pull to recursively fetch submodules too

Jens Lehmann [off-list ref] writes:

   a) "git fetch --all"

      The user wanted to fetch new commits from all remotes. I think
      git should also fetch all submodules then, no matter if new
      commits from them are fetched in the superproject, as the user
      explicitly said he wants everything. Objections?

Why?  I do not see a "--submodules" option on that command line.  The only
thing I asked is to grab all branches for the project I ran "git fetch"
in.

   b) "git fetch [<repository>]"

      The user wants to fetch from the default [or a single repo]. I
      think all submodules should be fetched too, Kevin thinks this
      should happen only when it is necessary (at least for his 'H'
      repository). While I think fetching all submodules too is
      consistent with the fact that you get all branches in the
      superproject too, whether you need them or not, we can't seem
      to agree on this one (also see my proposal below).

The case with <repository> is a lot more questionable than the case of
fetching implicitly from whereever you usually fetch from.  Imagine that
you fork git.git, and create a separate project that has some nifty
additions to support submodules better.  The additional part is naturally
done as a submodule.  This jens.git repository becomes very popular and
people clone from it.  Your users usually interact with your repository by
saying "git fetch" or "git pull" without any explicit <repository>.  They,
however, would want to fetch/pull from me from time to time to get updates
that you haven't incorporated in jens.git repository. "git fetch junio" is
run.  Why should such a "fetch" go to your repository and slurp the
objects for the submodules?

Perhaps you would want some knobs like these?

        [remote "origin"]
                fetch-submodules = all
                fetch-submodules = changed

        [remote "junio"]
                fetch-submodules = none

I dunno.  I've never been a fan of automatically recursing into submodules
(iow, treating the nested structure as if there is no nesting), so...