Re: What's in a name? Let's use a (uuid,name,email) triplet

[Michael Witten <mfwitten@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 14:07, Linus Torvalds
<torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:

> And if it doesn't have meaning, then it's just
> annoying and will never ever be attached to
> anything relevant long-term.

You've actually just described the current name/email system.

What a uuid provides is that very property of long-term attachment; a
git user can change the name/email pair but keep the same uuid.

You see, the problem is that the name/email pair isn't really an
identifier; it's actually just info about the user's current email
account, which is very useful for everyday workflow, but pretty naive
for historical identification over long periods of time.

As previously discussed in my original email, the 'email' portion of
the name/email pair is the most volatile portion, and that's because
it's only tangentially related to identity (and it certainly has
nothing to do with long-term identity).

>There is absolutely _no_ way that teh uuid would
> ever actually encode any real meaningful
> information that isn't better represented by the
> name/email.

It IS a name/email pair (if you want or if that is enforced); it's
just one that isn't as volatile.

This notion of a uuid is an attempt to adopt a BETTER MODEL for
identity: The user get's to choose a piece of information that he
himself deems a longterm identifier; it's not about what address you
currently use for email, it's solely about who you are over a long
period of time.