Issue 51: require some extra switch to add very large files

Reported by Unknown User, Jul 27, 2006

(This entry was imported from the savannah tracker, original 
location: https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/index.php?17209)

<xorian> Vesta has this really simple feature where any time 
you try to commit a file over a certain limit (which defaults to 
1MB), it complins unless you give a command-line flag that changes 
that upper limit.

Sounds like a good idea to me!  (This ties into the whole "it's 
impossible to ever get rid of anything you commit ever" thing.)

Comment 1 by Thomas Keller, Jul 31, 2006

This sounds to me like a per-project setting / restriction rather 
than a system-wide setting. How could such a thing be properly 
implemented in the current scheme?

I can immediately think of other "per project" 
restrictions, like disallowing commits with empty log messages, 
which could use the same functionality then.

Comment 2 by Unknown User, Jul 31, 2006

Maybe.  The existing precedent for how to implement per-project 
settings is ".mtn-ignore".  Versioned policy will provide 
another mechanism.

Comment 3 by Unknown User, Sep 7, 2006

Another approach: file size distributions are pretty predictably 
log-normal (though there are exceptions).  This distribution is very 
easy to fit.  So, instead of making it explicitly tunable, could do 
a quick normal fit of the existing files, and, say, call an 
"unusual" file one that is at the 95+% quantile in size, 
and require some extra work whenever adding a new 
"unusual" file or, say, an existing file has more than 
doubled in size and become "unusual".

monotone

Issue 51: require some extra switch to add very large files