From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jon Smirl Subject: Re: What's in a name? Let's use a (uuid,name,email) triplet Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:33:27 -0400 Message-ID: <9e4733911003190733h62e2aea0i7573bba641f4d931@mail.gmail.com> References: <4ba2293f.c5c2f10a.5e9c.5c4a@mx.google.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Cc: Michael Witten , git@vger.kernel.org To: Jakub Narebski X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Fri Mar 19 15:33:35 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 1NsdGY-0005W4-6A for gcvg-git-2@lo.gmane.org; Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:33:34 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751677Ab0CSOd3 convert rfc822-to-quoted-printable (ORCPT ); Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:33:29 -0400 Received: from qw-out-2122.google.com ([74.125.92.25]:14757 "EHLO qw-out-2122.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750984Ab0CSOd2 convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:33:28 -0400 Received: by qw-out-2122.google.com with SMTP id 8so588134qwh.37 for ; Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:33:27 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=feFe4HVlh0W1A7oDXnN9GOTGKkdBN95fd03/padyX3w=; b=jz+oG4dW/fO933HIOCaqbeD1qHtfh+/I+xl8837rKVh9ZWeZPWqhg88iBWKYeY7gAF Reioh2mGauBoHxZcAfSbD/7uPkCL7ZFqS2CUHpNFNIdNXPdBFou62Z60DEB3AKqhksRS z73UwjEUG3C1G2yLKr8CDSAVBGcEp5QCZBpJc= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=JcAhx/kvyc8z122EhQqd5SeuwMqWdbMCdhBCPlEJLQlF8lgI1OomRYyJConZsV+n0r tecejYWJ2+FDQqOLYozY3Ka/7ttB3ImFZfh4c7XZ98WqncV6QAbdE6euqG847BJDNuFQ eS4m4HXajiikAsRCH4Mdfk4ZlCRLJC6QHbhnw= Received: by 10.229.221.14 with SMTP id ia14mr4365541qcb.8.1269009207308; Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:33:27 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 10:08 AM, Jakub Narebski wro= te: > Michael Witten writes: > >> Short Version: >> ------------- >> >> >> Rather than use a (name,email) pair to identify people, let's use >> a (uuid,name,email) triplet. >> >> The uuid can be any piece of information that a user of git determin= es >> to be reasonably unique across space and time and that is intended t= o >> be used by that user virtually forever (at least within a project's >> history). >> >> For instance, the uuid could be an OSF DCE 1.1 UUID or the SHA-1 of >> some easily remembered, already reasonably unique information. > > ... or 'canonical-name canonical-email' pair. > >> >> This could really help keep identifications clean, and it is rather >> straightforward and possibly quite efficient. >> >> >> Long Version: >> ------------ > [...] > >> While git's use of (name,email) pairs to identify each person is >> extremely practical, it turns out that it's rather `unstable'; > > This is non-solution to non-problem. > > First, the user.name and user.email does not need to be name and emai= l > from some email account. =A0It might be some "canonical name" and > "canonical email". > > Second, there are (I think) two main sources of 'unstability' in > (name,email) pairs, namely A) misconfigured git (when fetching/pushin= g > using git itself), B) wrong name in email etc. (when sending patches > via email, 80% of patches in Linux kernel case). Another top source is mangling of non-ASCII charsets when they go though the email system. Are the git work flow tools safe for alternative charsets? Do the email tools look at the charset header of the email message? Check people's names in the kernel commits and you'll find lots of examples of this type of mangling. Or people not using UTF-8. There are files in the kernel where people's names are in conflicting codepages. Should git try to look for diffs that aren't UTF-8? > > In the case of misconfigured git (case A) using UUID wouldn't help, > and only make it worse (you would have to configure the same UUID on > each machine). =A0What would help here is for git to be more strict a= nd > perhaps forbid (some of) autogenerated names and emails. > > In the case of sending patches via email, you can use in-body 'From:' > to provide (name,email) part that is different than account used to > send email. =A0In the case of UUID you would need the same: some way = to > provide UUID in patch (in email). =A0UUID has the disadvantage of bei= ng > required also when (name,email) in From: email header is good user ID= =2E > So UUID wouldn't help there either. > > > What could help in both cases is .mailmap being used (perhaps on > demand) in more git commands. =A0See Documentation/mailmap.txt > or e.g. git-shortlog(1) manpage. =A0It is quite advanced tool for > correcting mistakes (it can correct *both* user name, which is > most common usage, but also email address). > > -- > Jakub Narebski > Poland > ShadeHawk on #git > -- > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at =A0http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > --=20 Jon Smirl jonsmirl@gmail.com