Subject: Re: bug#63261: Recent changes to git config cause errors for non-committers

From: Maxim Cournoyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 May 2023 09:38:16 -0400

Hi!

Thanks for the feedback.

Brian Cully <[email-masked]> writes:

> I've run into two issues with the recent changes to git config
> integration:
>
> 1) All commits must now be signed, even if you're not a
> committer. This breaks just tons of things, including rebasing. I'm
> not sure how to fix this without just disabling that configuration
> line altogether.

Could you elaborate on 'tons of things' ? :-)  And why does it break
rebasing?  I rebase my branches often while signing the commits, so I'll
need more details to understand the issue.

The idea was to distribute the basic configuration that makes
collaborating on Guix easier, by auto-configuring things that previously
were left to do manually.  By having non-committers also follow the
committers' flow, it also prepares them to become committers, if they
wish :-).

> 2) Some ‘make’ rules now require git to be installed so that ‘git
> config’ can add ‘etc/git/gitconfig’ to the local configuration. So,
> for instance, ‘guix shell --pure -D guix -- make’ will now fail. Calls
> to git should be prefixed with a test to see if there is a git
> executable in the path.

This one is a clear problem, for example causing issues to build a
release tarball of Guix where git shouldn't be a requirement.  It should
be easy to fix with a test as you suggest.

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim