Hi, Le 2025-01-24 01:23, Otto Kekäläinen a écrit :
Also note that the contents that really matter is the git repositories themselves.
I do not agree with this premise.
The Merge Request feature is not intended to be a place of permanent documentation. It is just a tool to facilitate fast and accurate code review and efficient feedback among multiple participants, and efficient publication and re-review of code. All permanent documentation should to in inline comments, in READMEs in the repository or when explaining specifically *why* a change was made, it should be in the git commit message, and easily accessible via git blame.
This is true.
If people have a need to read MR discussions, then the git commit messages or git contents weren't done properly.
I disagree with this conclusion. Sometimes features are extensively discussed in salsa merge requests or issues, and the entire discussion just can't be summarized in a git commit message (and it is not desirable to even attempt that). This is especially true of features or implementations that are abandoned (where there is finally no commit in the project). Having access to these discussions is really useful when picking up unfinished work, working on recurrent issues, or when trying to find a new way to address something that was already attempted in the past. Or just as a reference when explaining to somebody that something is not a good idea.
Anyway I would trust the Debian Project and the Salsa admins to have already realized that this history is just as important as the BTS history, ML archives and other archives.
Cheers, -- Julien Plissonneau Duquène
