From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Michael Haggerty Subject: Re: What's in a name? Let's use a (uuid,name,email) triplet Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:41:37 +0100 Message-ID: <4BA338C1.7030803@alum.mit.edu> References: <4ba2293f.c5c2f10a.5e9c.5c4a@mx.google.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: git@vger.kernel.org To: Michael Witten X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Fri Mar 19 09:42:19 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@lo.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NsXmE-0000rW-Jn for gcvg-git-2@lo.gmane.org; Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:41:55 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753095Ab0CSIlk (ORCPT ); Fri, 19 Mar 2010 04:41:40 -0400 Received: from einhorn.in-berlin.de ([192.109.42.8]:39644 "EHLO einhorn.in-berlin.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753073Ab0CSIlj (ORCPT ); Fri, 19 Mar 2010 04:41:39 -0400 X-Envelope-From: mhagger@alum.mit.edu Received: from [192.168.100.152] (ssh.berlin.jpk.com [212.222.128.135]) (authenticated bits=0) by einhorn.in-berlin.de (8.13.6/8.13.6/Debian-1) with ESMTP id o2J8fbul029782 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NOT); Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:41:37 +0100 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.23) Gecko/20090817 Thunderbird/2.0.0.23 Mnenhy/0.7.6.666 In-Reply-To: <4ba2293f.c5c2f10a.5e9c.5c4a@mx.google.com> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.95.0 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang_at_IN-Berlin_e.V. on 192.109.42.8 Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Michael Witten wrote: > Rather than use a (name,email) pair to identify people, let's use > a (uuid,name,email) triplet. > [...] A UUID doesn't need to be a big hex number. All it has to be is a "Universally Unique Identifier". Like, oh, for example, your *** EMAIL ADDRESS *** [1]. There is even already a way to fix up mistakes or unavoidable email address changes, namely the .mailmap file. So if you are exercised about having a persistent identity, simply find an email provider that is unlikely to ever give your email address to somebody else, and use that address consistently. Encourage other people to do the same and to keep their .mailmap entries up to date. (Not that it's likely to happen, but having people maintain opaque UUIDs is even *less* likely.) Michael [1] The only non-UUID property of legitimate email addresses is that the username part or even the domain name part of an email address can be recycled. But with a reputable email provider this shouldn't be a problem. For the purpose of the UUID it is not even a problem if the email address becomes defunct, as long as it is not taken over by somebody else.