Re: [incubation] GitHub, initial contribution, history, and GitHub issue

[Denis Roy <denis.roy@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jens,

First -- thank you for asking on the incubation list.

Some answers below:

On 04/18/2017 08:39 AM, Jens von Pilgrim wrote:
>
> 1. Git History
> Eclipse Project Handbook (EPH): ""The IP Team is not able to review
> the history of project code being moved to an Eclipse project. [..] If
> your project uses an existing GitHub repository, the Webmaster team
> will help you obscure the the history into a hidden branch."
>
> I understand that it is not possible to preserve the history as it its
> because it cannot be reviewed. But what does "obscure the the history
> into a hidden branch" mean?

We create a branch called "_old" and rewrite the entire commit history
up to your "Initial Contribution" tag into that new branch. This allows
us to maintain a clone of your code from the Initial Contribution
onwards, onto our servers as a backup, should anything ever happen to
GitHub.

For that reason, we ask that you work with your community in sync'ing
everything up before tagging the Initial contribution, as rewriting
history will invalidate all the clones and forks that exist.


>
> 2. GitHub Issues
> If it is possible to somehow transfer the history, is it possible to
> transform issues as well? I already asked that in the related GitHub
> issue bug (https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=515010). This
> question has two sides:
> a) technically: We are currently investigating tools exporting and
> importing GitHub issues. Has anyone already used such a tool? We would
> be interested in a tool that could preserve the IDs of issues, since
> we use these IDs for traceability.
> b) legally: Is it OK to copy issues to an Eclipse project? We could
> restrict the copied issues to issues (and comments) posted by team
> members (i.e. committers).

I don't think you need to worry about issues.  I believe those can live
on, even past ones.

Denis