Re: What's cooking in git.git (Jan 2021, #02; Fri, 8)

Emily Shaffer [off-list ref] writes:

Secondly: it seems like a restatement of the goals of this patch would
help guide a discussion of designs; I would be so pleased to see a
cleaner solution than any that's been proposed so far, because I agree
that this feature is not perfect. So please append what I have missed:

Axiom: The current Git solution for avoiding deadnaming is insufficient.
Axiom: We want to improve Git's solution for avoiding deadnaming.
(That is, I don't think either of these statements are or should be up
for discussion.)

Another one [*1*]:

Axiom: It is, by nature of how Git works, impossible to come up with
a solution that avoids deadnaming perfectly.  The best we can do is
to aim for "good enough".

Goal: Projects which are contributed to by trans individuals who
transition during their contribution period should provide a good,
supportive experience, which does not deadname the individual.
Goal: Git's performance should not suffer unduly from any change unless
necessary.
Goal: Project maintainers should have an understanding of the threat
model (e.g. automated tools scraping for names, malicious individuals
with time on their hands and experience with the project, etc)

Goal: the design should clearly describe the thread model it
supports, so that "good enough" can be judged against it.



[Footnote]

*1* This may be clear from what both you and I said about perfection
and being good enough.  I usually do not like to see people punt for
an imperfect solution too early without even trying, but in a case
like this where we know perfection is theoretically impossible, it
is a totally different story.