To get old behavior, add a .gitattributes containing: * annex.backend=WORM
I feel that SHA256 is a better default for most people, as long as their
systems are fast enough that checksumming their files isn't a problem.
git-annex should default to preserving the integrity of data as well as git
does. Checksum backends also work better with editing files via
unlock/lock.
I considered just using SHA1, but since that hash is believed to be somewhat
near to being broken, and git-annex deals with large files which would be a
perfect exploit medium, I decided to go to a SHA-2 hash.
SHA512 is annoyingly long when displayed, and git-annex displays it in a
few places (and notably it is shown in ls -l), so I picked the shorter
hash. Considered SHA224 as it's even shorter, but feel it's a bit weird.
I expect git-annex will use SHA-3 at some point in the future, but
probably not soon!
Note that systems without a sha256sum (or sha256) program will fall back to
defaulting to SHA1.
Backends are now only used to generate keys (and check them); they
are not arbitrary key-value stores for data, because it turned out such
a store is better modeled as a special remote. Updated docs to not
imply backends do more than they do now.
Sometimes I'm tempted to rename "backend" to "keytype" or something,
which would really be more clear. But it would be an annoying transition
for users, with annex.backends etc.
