On Tue, 23 Mar 2010, Yang Tse wrote:

(I changed the subject since we're mostly talking about the effects of hosting
code in various countries here and not the pros and cons of git)

> Having the main repository at one country or another makes a difference for
> all of us whether we like it or not. Each country has its own laws, or not
> so clear rules, and means to enforce them.

I agree. But there's the other way too: just because data travels across
borders doesn't HAVE TO mean there is a problem with it.

curl and libcurl's CVS repository was entirely hosted on Sourceforge for many
years only to then be hosted on php.net (in the US) for a few more years.
We've only been hosted in Sweden since May 2004, thus slightly less than half
its life-time. Our project is truly international (I don't have any stats but
I would guess we have contributors from 30+ countries) and we've never had a
problem with being hosted in the US in the past.

Possibly there are even Americans who consider a US hosting preferable since
then they don't "import" the code when they checkout the code.

Then there's all the mirroring and package systems. I would assume a large
percentage of all curl and libcurl users download their package, be it binary
or source, from a server other than the one we at Haxx run and those servers
are spread out all over the globe.

> A free tool or a library that is capable of providing a vast amount of
> communication protocols which is already being used in an increasing number
> of free tools and OS's, as well as closed source ones, for any imaginable
> purpose, should probably try to stay clear of potential legal problems.

I agree. And I do. But my primary activity in this project is to lead and
develop it further. I need to be pragmatic and practical when it comes to a
lot of matters, as otherwise I would only have to care and work with these
non-technical issues and then I'd probably die out of boredom!

> Since I'm nearly git illiterate, I'm not in a position to recommend an
> alternative European or Swedish git hosting provider.
>
> An alternative could be to keep the main repo at haxx.se for committers,
> nightly snapshots and release tarballs, and have GitHub follow the main repo
> for everything else. But I don't know if this would fit your plans or even
> if it is tecnically possible.

I prefer to keep it like this:

  o There will be a git repository that a certain amount of people have the
    right to push commits to.

  o There will be versions of this repository available for checkout/pull from
    Sweden as well as from the US. And if there are volunteers, we can have it
    mirrored and available from just about everywhere in the world. If any
    country involved in this mix would one day somehow for anyone of us add
    some kind of legal restriction or problem, then we'd cut out that country
    from the system. Hopefully that country won't be the one I live and work
    in, but if that would happen nothing would prevent the rest of the world to
    just get the repo you have already and go with that. One beauty of git is
    that ALL clones and ALL mirrors will be perfect and complete mirrors of
    everything, so there's really and effectively no risk at all that code
    would one day end up behind any locked door due to any country's legal
    system.

  o There will also (if things work out as I want them to) be a Swedish CVS
    server providing a CVS view of the entire repository so that older machines
    or just users that are more CVS-savvy can select to get the code and update
    etc from a CVS server that will be in fine sync with the git version.

There is no development done particularly in any specific country. We develop
and commit locally in our own individual countries and regions. We then use
git to distribute these changes to repositories that are hosted in several
countries.

I honestly cannot even think of a scenario when this could be a problem. And
if the unthinkable scenario would still happen: it would be worked around by
us in a blink.

-- 
  / daniel.haxx.se
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