[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="joey"
 subject="""comment 1"""
 date="2020-06-11T17:36:54Z"
 content="""
The reason git-annex is preventing you from dropping a file in this
situation can be understood if you imagine that you've given me and a
friend access to your remotes.

Each of the three of us runs git-annex drop --from one remote. We all
picked a different remote. So each git-annex, running at the same time,
see two copies of the file, so assume they can delete the third copy. 
And so all 3 copies get deleted.

Admittedly, this is more likely to happen if there are only 2 remotes and 2
people involved, not 3 or more, and would be a big cooincidence even with
2 people. But git-annex aims to avoid losing content even in unlikely cases.

So it requires that, in order to drop the file, at least one of the other
repos have a copy, and be able to lock it in place, preventing it from
being dropped from that repo.

Unfortunately, the only remote that can lock content currently is a
git repository. (Maybe that [[could be improved|todo/lockContent_for_special_remotes]].)

The solution for you it to either use --force like the message says
(only if you're sure nobody else is dropping the files from the other remotes
at the same time), or to also have a git remote somewhere that contains
the file.
"""]]
