PDF presentations shouldn't be in Git

[stephenfin]

All of the PDFs from this years OVScon were recently added to the Git repo. However, this makes cloning the repo extremely slow as all of these PDFs must be checked out. Could we upload these to a proper, SaaS presentation hosting site instead? I use SpeakerDeck personally, as it lets you use your GitHub credentials, but I'm not sure if they support organizations (you don't want to be sharing credentials for a single account). I've emailed to ask them, but in the interim SlideShare do appear to offer such a feature.

[blp]

I wouldn't want to use some fly-by-night service as the site of record for the slides, even if that's a better way to host them for viewing. That's why I've been keeping them in the Git repo--even if Github goes under, lots of people still have the repo and we can push it somewhere else.

[russellb]

and surely there's not that many people cloning the site from git, and for the handful that do, it's probably not often ...

[blp]

Possibly we should be using Git LFS (https://help.github.com/articles/versioning-large-files/). I haven't used it before and I don't know the caveats.

[blp]

Better source of information on Git LFS: https://git-lfs.github.com/

[scottslowe]

FWIW, I don't see the inclusion of the PDFs in the main web site repo to be a major issue, and I've had to clone the repo from scratch a couple of times in the last month or so (provisioning new systems). It seems to me that Git LFS might be overkill, as all the presentations from the 2016 conference are less than 60MB in total.

[stephenfin]

FWIW, I don't see the inclusion of the PDFs in the main web site repo to be a major issue, and I've had to clone the repo from scratch a couple of times in the last month or so (provisioning new systems). It seems to me that Git LFS might be overkill, as all the presentations from the 2016 conference are less than 60MB in total.

I was thinking longer term. Assuming OVS is sticking around for a while, the amount and volume of PDFs is only going to grow. A 500 MB repo is no fun to clone. However, I hadn't considered the archival value of a DVCS like Git. I doubt SlideShare is going away any time soon (it's around since 2006 and owned by LinkedIn/Microsoft) but "just in case". Perhaps we could upload to SlideShare or it's ilk, and archive on an FTP somewhere?

[stephenfin]

It would seem SlideShare is the best option too - GitHub's SpeakerDec platform don't offer organisation accounts:

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for writing in!

Is it possible to create an organization account with multiple
admins, similar to organizations on GitHub proper.

I agree that this would be a great feature, but Speaker Deck does
not currently support organization-level accounts with shared access
for individual users

If not, what is the workflow for organizations who wish to upload
slides? Sharing credentials seems like a crude way to allow
multiple people to upload slides under, for example,
speakerdeck.com/myorganization.

Crude as it may be, sharing credentials for a company-branded user
account is the only way that more than one person would be able to
upload presentations to the same account

We are always working to improve Speaker Deck and we consider every
suggestion we receive. I've added your idea about organization account
types to our internal feature request list. We can't say if or when
we may add a feature, but your suggestion has been recorded and passed
on to the team.

Let us know if you have any other feedback or questions!

Best regards,
Ben

[blp]

I have not used Git LFS, but the documentation for it makes it sound super straightforward to use and integrate into a repository. Is there an actual reason to avoid using it for this purpose?

[stephenfin]

I have not used Git LFS, but the documentation for it makes it sound super straightforward to use and integrate into a repository. Is there an actual reason to avoid using it for this purpose?

Not at all - I'm a-OK with this 😄