On Fri, Sep 10, 2021 at 01:04:26PM +0200, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote: > In 1d53f90ed97 (The "curl" executable is no longer required, > 2008-06-15) the wording for requiring curl(1) was changed to the > current "you might also want...". > > Mentioning the "curl" executable at all is just confusing, someone > building git might want to use it to debug things, but they might also > just use wget(1) or some other http client. The "curl" executable has > the advantage that you might be able to e.g. reproduce a bug in git's > usage of libcurl with it, but anyone going to those extents is > unlikely to be aided by this note in INSTALL. I think that's reasonable. Keeping the INSTALL document short and clear is much more important than preemptively giving debugging hints of questionable value. > diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL > index 66389ce0591..5c6ecf03c27 100644 > --- a/INSTALL > +++ b/INSTALL > @@ -139,11 +139,11 @@ Issues of note: > (PPC_SHA1). > > - "libcurl" library is used by git-http-fetch, git-fetch, and, if > - the curl version >= 7.34.0, for git-imap-send. You might also > - want the "curl" executable for debugging purposes. If you do not > - use http:// or https:// repositories, and do not want to put > - patches into an IMAP mailbox, you do not have to have them > - (use NO_CURL). > + the curl version >= 7.34.0, for git-imap-send. > + > + If you do not use http:// or https:// repositories, and do > + not want to put patches into an IMAP mailbox, you do not > + have to have them (use NO_CURL). I was confused by "them" here, which you kept in the post-image. In the original I thought it mean "libcurl and curl". And now that you are just saying "libcurl", it ought to be "it". But perhaps it means "git-http-fetch, git-fetch, etc". In which case it's still correct. But maybe it would be simpler to say: If you do not use ..., you do not need libcurl (use NO_CURL to build without it). Sort of orthogonal, but maybe worth touching while we're here: that list of commands is kind of outdated. Nobody even knows what git-http-fetch is these days, and most people would not use it (it is only for dumb fetching). And certainly git-push can use http. So maybe something like: "libcurl" library is used for fetching and pushing repositories over http:// or https://, as well as by git-imap-send if the curl version is >= 7.34.0. -Peff
