Sharing a Mercurial repository while maintaining user privacy

Question

I have a commercial product, and I'd like to make source code licenses an option for my customers.

In an ideal world:

1. Customer would buy a source license
2. Send me their BitBucket user name
3. Receive an invite to a private BitBucket repository

From there, the customer could clone the repository (though not make it private) for their own use. If they made in-house modifications, they could still pull my updates, and use Mercurial's fantastic merge system to resolve any conflicts. They could even submit pull requests if they fixed a bug.

The downside to BitBucket is that (from what I can tell, please correct if I am wrong), users of a private repository can see each other. I don't think my customers would be keen on letting other customers know they are using the product.

Is the only option to host my own Mercurial repository, exposed over HTTPS with username/password authentication? Or can BitBucket, Kiln, or another Mercurial host be made to work?

Answer 1

Is the only option to host my own Mercurial repository, exposed over HTTPS with username/password authentication?

I think yes. It’s not hard though, I set it up in an afternoon.

See PublishingRepositories.

Also you should maybe take a look at RhodeCode, it looks promising and seems to come with a repository management interface.

Answer 2

As a normal user, you cannot see who has access to a repository on Bitbucket.

But you can see the history of the repository (of course) and so Customer A might see that Customer B supplied you with a bugfix. That is the same with any hosting solution, though, as it is a general property of Mercurial.

So if you want to do this, then you'll need to tell your customers upfront that they should use pseudonyms when they make commits in the project.