git-annex is a way to manage files with git without checking their contents into git¹. There have been some chit-chat about using git-annex for distfiles management on IRC but we never really discussed it thoroughly.
git-annex may provide several advantages to our distfiles management. One of the main advantages is integrity checking of files managed by git-annex². The users can use several remotes which make it a practical way to handle mirrors for them³. The deployment may not look simple at first sight but I do not think this is the case. git-annex is written in Haskell but it is fairly easy to build it as a static linked binary which may be distributed in ::arbor and stages. I have been using this approach with our radio station for a while now and haven't had any problems⁴. We can also use git-annex' special "web" remote to distribute files through http protocol⁵. The special remotes and especially the "hook" remote can even make it possible to distribute files via p2p or other protocols⁶. CC'ing infra monkeys for comments. Please discuss! ¹: http://git-annex.branchable.com/git-annex/ http://lwn.net/Articles/419241/ ²: http://git-annex.branchable.com/backends/ ³: http://git-annex.branchable.com/transferring_data/ ⁴: http://dev.exherbo.org/~alip/scripts/cabal-annex ⁵: http://git-annex.branchable.com/special_remotes/ http://git-annex.branchable.com/special_remotes/web/ http://git-annex.branchable.com/tips/using_the_web_as_a_special_remote/ ⁶: http://git-annex.branchable.com/special_remotes/hook/ -alip
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