[gentoo-dev] Current portage will now truncate your repo's git history to 1

[Florian Schmaus <flow@gentoo.org>]

This is a public service announcement that the recently stabilized 
portage version will truncate you repo's git history to 1.

While this is a good thing for the majority of Gentoo users, it affects 
developers that develop in a git known to portage (like me). If I 
understand the portage maintainers vision correctly, then future portage 
will assume full control over its configured repositories and 
potentially perform destructive operations on them, for example "git 
clean" [1].

I personally would prefer portage simply adjusting its behavior based on 
the owner of the repository. That is, if it's the 'portage' user then 
assume full control, and if it is a different user, then fall back to a 
preserving, conservative mode of operation. Unfortunately, for me, this 
idea was received skeptically at best in a recent discussion in 
#gentoo-portage.

So this is a heads up for fellow developers using a similar workflow 
like me, that they are probably required to change their workflow to use 
PORTDIR_OVERLAY and multiple repositories on their system: a 
system-wide, managed by portage, and a dev repository (in your HOME), 
scoped in via PORTDIR_OVERLAY.

As everyone knows, there is nothing better than to change the workflow 
that has served you well over multiple years. But apparently the 
PORTDIR_OVERLAY approach works well for others, so I am confident that I 
(and others) will be able to make the transition with a minimal amount 
of ranting. ;)

- Flow



1: https://github.com/gentoo/portage/pull/939