[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="joey"
 subject="""comment 1"""
 date="2016-02-12T18:21:38Z"
 content="""
I guess that fully getting rid of direct mode is a couple of years out.

First, [[design/adjusted_branches]] needs to be implemented, to allow
locked files to appear as unlocked automatically when a repository is
checked out on a device that doesn't support symlinks.

Then, a git-annex version with good enough support for v6 unlocked files
needs to have been around long enough that basically everyone has upgraded.
So in various stable and long term support version of linux distros, etc.
Only at that point could direct mode repositories be automatically updated
to v6 repositories.

And yeah, it's potentially a problem that annex.thin doesn't work on
Windows or FAT, and so converting such a repository doubles the disk use.
I've added a note to [[todo/smudge]] to remember this is a potential thing
to be improved before getting rid of direct mode. I think there are a
couple of approaches that could avoid the problem.

So, I recommend not being put off from using direct mode today out of
worries that it might be removed 3 years from now.

(You mentioned repeatedly unlocking. You shouldn't need to do that.
In a V6 repository, when you unlock a file, that changes how it's
represented in the git repository, so you can commit that change and it
will be unlocked in other clones too. And if you `git add` large files,
they'll be unlocked by default and you don't need to unlock them.)
"""]]
