[PATCH v2 5/5] SubmittingPatches: note that trailer order matters

[kristofferhaugsbakk@fastmail.com]

From: Kristoffer Haugsbakk <code@khaugsbakk.name>

It matters where you put new trailers: they should be added in
chronological order, and each person who passes on a patch should add
their s-o-b last. You are signing off on the patch as well as the whole
message up to that point.

This also makes it clear who added what:

    Acked-by: The Reviewer <r@example.org>
    Signed-off-by: The Contributor <c@example.org>
    Acked-by: The (Late) Reviewer <late@example.org>
    Signed-off-by: The Maintainer <m@example.org>

The first ack was added by the contributor and the second one was added
by the maintainer.

Helped-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Signed-off-by: Kristoffer Haugsbakk <code@khaugsbakk.name>
---

Notes (series):
    v2:
    • Mention this in both the DCO section (new) as well as the trailers
      section
    • Emphasize and lead with chronological order and let everything
      fall in place according to that
        • https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqq8q8mt4eo.fsf@gitster.g/
    • Msg: Drop “the the”; one is enough

 Documentation/SubmittingPatches | 10 ++++++++++
 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
index cb2df3cfff6..dceeb5a1817 100644
--- a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
+++ b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
@@ -427,6 +427,10 @@ D-C-O.  Indeed you are encouraged to do so.  Do not forget to
 place an in-body "From: " line at the beginning to properly attribute
 the change to its true author (see (2) above).
 
+Place this `Signed-off-by:` trailer at the end, after trailers added by
+others and after other trailers added by you; see
+<<commit-trailers,Commit trailers>> below ("chronological order").
+
 This procedure originally came from the Linux kernel project, so our
 rule is quite similar to theirs, but what exactly it means to sign-off
 your patch differs from project to project, so it may be different
@@ -487,6 +491,12 @@ particular are not used in this project.
 Only capitalize the very first letter of the trailer, i.e. favor
 `Signed-off-by:` over `Signed-Off-By:` and `Acked-by:` over `Acked-By:`.
 
+As mentioned under <<dco,DCO>> above, trailers are added in
+chronological order; one person might sign-off on a patch and send it to
+someone else, who then in turn adds her own sign-off. Further, any
+trailers that you add beyond your sign-off should come before that
+sign-off. That makes it clear what trailers which person added.
+
 [[ai]]
 === Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
 
-- 
2.54.0.22.g9e26862b904