[Proposal] Drop git 1.x support, or fix the IsEmpty bug

[wxiaoguang]

There is an obvious bug in Gitea that IsEmpty check always fails in git 1.x (git 1.x reports an error for that command), it makes many users only see empty repositories after they have pushed content in.

• Old git cli (maybe < 2) can not do IsEmpty check correctly #19086
  (and more)

The only reason to support git 1.x IIRC is for CentOS 7.x users.

However, CentOS 7.x is quite old, and the users could always have other solutions: upgrade git (ius/wandisco/endpoint), or use docker to run Gitea.

Since Gitea is reaching 1.17, it's time to make the decision.

• 👍 Drop git 1.x support
• 🎉 [or] Fix the IsEmpty bug

I prefer to drop git 1.x support.

[lafriks]

I would also vote for dropping git 1.x support

[silverwind]

We should probably define a minimum git version visibly in the docs and maybe emit a startup warning if it's too old. A good starter might be git 2.17 which is the latest upstream-supported version.

[wxiaoguang]

@go-gitea/maintainers

It seems that this proposal gets votes for drop git 1.x support.

Any objection? If no objection, then we can move on.

[lunny]

@go-gitea/maintainers

It seems that this proposal gets votes for drop git 1.x support.

Any objection? If no objection, then we can move on.

I update the issue content to add two emoji to make vote easier. :)

[wxiaoguang]

Since there is no objection (yet), so the PR comes, a very simple PR:

• Increase minimal required git version to 2.0 #19577

---

silverwind:

We should probably define a minimum git version visibly in the docs and maybe emit a startup warning if it's too old. A good starter might be git 2.17 which is the latest upstream-supported version.

Do you have some references about this information? I can not find the earliest supported git version.

[silverwind]

Do you have some references about this information? I can not find the earliest supported git version.

I was going off Wikipedia, not sure how accurate that info is, but the release dates seem to confirm it.

[wxiaoguang]

Interesting .... I prefer maybe we do not need to hard-code these minor versions into code, without these detailed version, it reduces the maintenance workload, and gitea still works correctly. And there are a lot of git version check inside gitea, maybe they should be upgraded together in future.

[eeyrjmr]

One consideration for the minimum is any associated security issues
https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-15815/product_id-33590/Git-scm-GIT.html

[wxiaoguang]

One consideration for the minimum is any associated security issues https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-15815/product_id-33590/Git-scm-GIT.html

Thank you for the suggestion. However, the 3rdparty security is not related to Gitea directly. For example, there are other softwares like Database, Cache, SSH even Linux Kernel may have security problem, but Gitea can not (and should not) cover all of them.