launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Steve Kowalik <steve.kowalik@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

	Currently, Branch has two fields which determine if the branch is
private -- explicitly_private and transitively_private. A private is
explicitly_private if it has been marked as private, and it is
transitively_private if it itself is public, but is stacked on a private
branch.

	As part of the Disclosure project, Purple are working on migrating
Branch to using information_type -- much like we already have for Bugs.
The types of information are Public, Unembargoed Security, Embargoed
Security, User Data, and Proprietary. We already moving to being able to
control who can see the different types of information with the +sharing
page.

	The information_type column is fully populated on all three instances
of Launchpad, so we can start switching model code to depending on it
rather than the two private columns.

	One thing that is currently causing issues is how do we deal with
stacking and information_type? It's clear that any type of information
can be stacked on top of a Public branch -- in much the same way that we
can have private branches stacked on public ones currently.

	This whole thing gets murky when you consider say, branch A, which is
Embargoed Security branch stacked on branch B, which is User Data? It's
clear who has access to branch B, but who has access to branch A? Purple
has decided that this situation is not allowed, since it isn't clear.

	The other situation which murks up the water quite a lot is when you
consider the following -- branch A is public, branch B is stacked on A
and is Embargoed Security, branch C is stacked on A and is User Data,
and branch D is Embargoed Security and stacked on B. If we then change B
so it stacks onto C, what should happen? We've already decided that
Embargoed Security on top of User Data is wrong, and if we change the
information_type of B and D to User Data, we could end up disclosing the
contents of the branches to other people.

	Thoughts? Comments? Things that I've haven't made clear?

Cheers,
-- 
                                        Steve
Launchpad Developer
Canonical, Ltd