Re: git am mangles commit author name.

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Hi Daniel,

Daniel F wrote: 

> would simply setting minimum length to 1 have any negative
> side effects?

I am not a git maintainer, but I would suggest writing a patch to do
that.  Then you can try it and see, and send us a copy of the patch
when reporting the results.

My guess is Linus wanted to make sure he had meaningful names in
patches he applies[1].  There is no technical limit I know of that would
lead one to forbid an author name longer than 60 characters, either.
So the questions are:

 - did any code learn to rely on those limits later?
 - are any _people_ relying on those limits now?

I suspect the answer to question 2, at least for the lower bound,
is no.

Hope that helps,
Jonathan

[1] See v0.99.2~51^2~21 (Start of early patch applicator tools for
git., 2005-04-11) for the original script.