Default git repositories for Ubuntu packages in Launchpad

[Robie Basak]

Dear Ubuntu Developers,

We'd like to start pointing lp:ubuntu/+source/<package> to the
git-ubuntu imported repositories
(lp:~usd-import-team/ubuntu/+source/<package>). This is for git only;
bzr is unaffected.

If you object, please reply to this thread.

We can do this on a per-package basis, and change the aliases later
easily. I'd like switch now and continue to maintain the aliases for all
packages we import, which we intend to ramp up to all packages in the
archive soon, except currently for src:linux.

There are two main reasons for this:

1) Object sharing within Launchpad will Just Work. If you clone from our
repositories and then push a branch to lp:~you/ubuntu/+source/<package>
whether just to share or create a merge proposal, you won't have to
upload the entire repository again, and Launchpad won't have to store
everything multiple times. We don't want to ramp up to importing all
repositories until we have this in place.

2) We'd like "git ubuntu clone <package>" to Just Work for all packages
to support our drive-by contributor use case. We want drive-by
contributors to get the same git view with the same form of tags, branch
pointers, and work trees for all packages. We don't want to explain away
exceptions depending on the maintaining team; we feel this makes for a
poor first time contributor experience.

Since, except for linux, these aliases currently don't point to
anything, this change shouldn't impact existing developers or workflows.
If you are using an alias, please let us know here and we can discuss.

Note that we aren't declaring "hash stability" until a future 1.0
release. For those experimenting with our branches in the meantime, this
means that we expect to rebase the branches creating alternate
histories. This will cause disruption to you, which is no different to
our position right now. The aliases will make no difference to this.

If there are no objections, I expect to start making this change in the
week beginning 23 October.

Thanks,

Robie
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