[U-Boot] U-Boot git usage model

[Stephen Warren <swarren@wwwdotorg.org>]

On 10/13/2012 01:17 PM, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
> Dear Stephen Warren,
> 
> In message <50770155.20700@wwwdotorg.org> you wrote:
>>
>> and in particular, the following parts of that doc is what tells me that
>> committers should always add S-o-b even if the commit didn't change:
>>
>>>         Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1
>>>
>>>         By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:
>> ...
>>>         (c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other
>>>             person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified
>>>             it.
> 
> No, I think you misinterpret this ;-)
> 
> This is intended for cases where the original author of the patch
> shall remain unknown for whatever reasons.  Consider some bigger
> companies doing a lot of their actual development in low-cost
> countries (say, China).  They usually have a ton of developers
> workignon such stuff, and only one (or very few) people who
> "interface" ith the community.  It is these interface-guys who will
> add their SoB based on above rule, meaning: yes, I can certify that
> this is Open Source, and even though the original author shall remain
> unnamed this can be used freely in this context.

Irrespective of the documentation (which I obviously read the way I
describe anyway...), the kernel practice is that everyone who writes or
commits a patch adds their S-o-b line, and everyone who simply merges a
branch from someone else checks that the provider of the branch added
their S-o-b to patches they applied (rather than merged themselves) but
does not add their own S-o-b (because it's impossible).

I have often wondered why the merge commits themselves were not signed
off by the person performing the merge (which would then logically cover
all the commits that got merged). I haven't investigated to find out why
though. Doing so would seem to solve your objection about merges.