GitHub is announcing that is will soon support the open source extension Git LFS (Large File System) on every repository they host.
This extension allows the replacement of large files (audio samples, images, textures models, various assets...) by references pointing to a remote server, allowing you to store huge files in your repository. While GitHub is only now implementing it as part of its service, it can be used without GitHub as of now.
This system could easily benefit organizations and projects relying on a heavy quantity of assets.
See the official announcement here on the GitHub blog.
Do you use GitHub for your work? How do you think this could be implemented in your organization and projects? I know this will end up replacing the complex workflow I have put in place in my company, based on on a intricate system of submodules.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NCommander on Thursday April 09 2015, @08:31PM
While the SN repo is small enough it wouldn't change anything for us, I can imagine it will go a *long* way with organizations that have non-coders that have to interact with a codebase. I was a developer on a MMORPG, and had to work with artists who didn't know the first thing about quality control. Due to the nature of the game and the codebase, one frequently needed to have assets including, test in game and tweaked. This would frequently require having to make multiple roundtrips of getting assets, updating assets via , and committing considerably simpler if I could just point git at a URL and grab on the fly.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by cats on Friday April 10 2015, @10:38AM
I think this will be big for games developers and graphic designers. In my experience graphics folks tend not to use version control at all. It will be cool if in 5-10 years we'll be able to fork a movie on GitHub and make our own custom edits.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Saturday April 11 2015, @05:54AM
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @08:39PM
This is great because keeping large files outside the repository will help with many things. One thing I see is that this give an easy place to put releases. Now, all they need is a build system and you can have a reliable way of assuring that the executable, package or tarball you are downloading is actually from the project in question. That (combined with the issue tracker, source code management, pages, and the aforementioned storage space) would finally give various open source projects a one-stop shop.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday April 09 2015, @09:07PM
(did the complexity crept in because of limited storage resources or is the production workflow inherently complex?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 3, Informative) by Marneus68 on Friday April 10 2015, @11:06AM
>If the workflow in itself is complex, why do you think relying on GitHit will simplify it?
GitHub doesn't simplify anything, Git LFS could.
>(did the complexity crept in because of limited storage resources or is the production workflow inherently complex?)
The complexity is inherent to the type of project we make (we have our own framework with needs to be tracked, plugins for the engine with their own codebase but where we only need to have the binaries in the end project, the business specific code using a specific version of our internal framework, and then you have the assets). Building the final product isn't hard, creating a versionning scheme that prevents storing duplicates of shared resources is what makes the whole process complex.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by darkfeline on Friday April 10 2015, @06:11PM
Sounds nice, but is there a size limit? Can I just start using GitHub as a file host now? Actually, does GitHub have a size limit?
On a different note, what's the difference between Git LFS and git-annex, which is also designed to do Git with large files?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @10:11PM
Like they've done with git, I think they may have just figured out a nice way to wrap git-annex. The only way to know for sure is when they actually implement it.