githubredir.debian.net - Delivering .tar.gz from Github tags

There is quite a bit of software whose upstream authors decide that, as they are already using Git for development, the main distribution channel should be GitHub - This allows, yes, for quite a bit of flexibility, which many authors have taken advantage of.

So, I just registered and set up http://githubredir.debian.net/ to make it easier for packagers to take advantage of it.

Specifically, what does this redirector make? Given that GitHub allows for downloading as a .zip or as a .tar.gz any given commit, it suddenly becomes enough to git tag with a version number, and GitHub magically makes that version available for download. Which is sweet!

Sometimes it is a bit problematic, though, to follow their format. Github gives a listing of the tags for each particular prooject, and each of those tags has a download page, with both archiving formats.

I won't go into too much detail here - Thing is, going over several pages becomes painful for Debian's uscan, widely used for various of our QA processes. There are other implemented redirectors, such as the one used for SourceForge.

This redirector is mainly meant to be consumed by Debian's uscan. Anybody who finds this system useful can freely use it, although you might be better served by the rich, official GitHub.com interface.

Anyway - Enough repeating what I said on the http://githubredir.debian.net/ base page. Find it useful? Go ahead and use it!