Convert binaries to LFS or remove need to push binaries to Git and merge with regular Equinox repo

[vogella]

Simular to the SWT binary discussion eclipse-platform/eclipse.platform.swt.binaries#2 we should try to get rid of the stored binaries in the Equinox repos.

[tjwatson]

I see little advantage to using LFS for the launcher binaries. My understanding of LFS is that it is for large files. I don't think the launcher binaries will qualify as large enough. I am not for merging any binaries into the main codebase repositories. If a solution is implemented to avoid placing the binaries in any source repository I would be for doing that.

[iloveeclipse]

If a solution is implemented to avoid placing the binaries in any source repository I would be for doing that.

Git LFS is all about that.

It places the files in an extra storage on server, and a link to that into the file system. On checkout, git replaces the link with the actual content (transparently to user). The net effect is that the "source" repository doesn't contains any binaries anymore, so the split we have is avoided, and you can have all changes (build, sources & whatever needed on binaries) in a single commit.

[tjwatson]

Regardless, the fact that we place the binaries in source control that are a result of building the actual source in that source control repo seems wrong. I don't like the number of repos we have, but I also don't want to stick binaries in the equinox.framework repo directly (with or without LFS). I would rather these binaries be placed somewhere else. Ideally I think the binaries should be built automatically as part of our normal builds. It seems that is not easily accomplished but I don't want the result of that shortcut to be placing the binaries in the equinox.framework repository.