[ostree/wip/packfile-rebase2: 3/11] libostree: Add README.md



commit 10f952cf8c5e80c891a29baaed2c9e6f32100d62
Author: Colin Walters <walters verbum org>
Date:   Fri Mar 16 17:50:05 2012 -0400

    libostree: Add README.md

 src/libostree/README.md |   30 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 files changed, 30 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
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diff --git a/src/libostree/README.md b/src/libostree/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..04d1462
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+++ b/src/libostree/README.md
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+Repository design
+-----------------
+
+At the heart of OSTree is the repository.  It's very similar to git,
+with the idea of content-addressed storage.  However, OSTree is
+designed to store operating system binaries, not source code.  There
+are several consequences to this.  The key difference as compared to
+git is that the OSTree definition of "content" includes key Unix
+metadata such as owner uid/gid, as well as all extended attributes.
+
+Essentially OSTree is designed so that if two files have the same
+OSTree checksum, it's safe to replace them with a hard link.  This
+fundamental design means that an OSTree repository imposes negligible
+overhead.  In contrast, a git repository stores copies of
+zlib-compressed data.
+
+Key differences versus git
+----------------------------
+
+ * As mentioned above, extended attributes and owner uid/gid are versioned
+ * SHA256 instead of SHA1
+ * Support for empty directories
+
+Binary files
+------------
+
+While this is still in planning, I plan to heavily optimize OSTree for
+versioning ELF operating systems.  In industry jargon, this would be
+"content-aware storage".
+



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