From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jakub Narebski Subject: Re: How best to handle multiple-authorship commits in GIT? Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:57:18 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: References: <21056.1328185509@redhat.com> <9B990DDC-858D-43BA-BF9E-E0C3435354AF@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: David Howells , "git@vger.kernel.org" To: Valerie Aurora X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Thu Feb 02 20:57:29 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Rt2md-0001uQ-Un for gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org; Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:57:28 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S933529Ab2BBT5W (ORCPT ); Thu, 2 Feb 2012 14:57:22 -0500 Received: from mail-ee0-f46.google.com ([74.125.83.46]:44039 "EHLO mail-ee0-f46.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S933526Ab2BBT5V (ORCPT ); Thu, 2 Feb 2012 14:57:21 -0500 Received: by eekc14 with SMTP id c14so896721eek.19 for ; Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:57:20 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=x-authentication-warning:to:cc:subject:references:from:date :in-reply-to:message-id:lines:user-agent:mime-version:content-type; bh=PJDsDt/911+brf/L0hjbMgNrA3HfEXgBobkCinirIRk=; b=wS+SSi1tzvFgOWa8q4ArfQcAlle5BGgKZGzXLcwpKCS8aiECDl/x6xq0E378C9Gu73 1xTtfHfmqCfUb3FKtb+UxKRcgRhw7sgUCUqzpPZun718XmFI8lD6FZy7Dxzy2QhKCCDB 3bgDSqk0xR8FKygNitSmBDgAkKcTKMvH9iePY= Received: by 10.14.185.144 with SMTP id u16mr1335232eem.112.1328212640568; Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:57:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost.localdomain (abwd54.neoplus.adsl.tpnet.pl. [83.8.227.54]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id t11sm12728342eea.10.2012.02.02.11.57.16 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:57:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost.localdomain (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by localhost.localdomain (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id q12JvwSp017295; Thu, 2 Feb 2012 20:57:59 +0100 Received: (from jnareb@localhost) by localhost.localdomain (8.13.4/8.13.4/Submit) id q12Jvvrj017292; Thu, 2 Feb 2012 20:57:57 +0100 X-Authentication-Warning: localhost.localdomain: jnareb set sender to jnareb@gmail.com using -f In-Reply-To: <9B990DDC-858D-43BA-BF9E-E0C3435354AF@gmail.com> User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.4 Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Valerie Aurora writes: > [...] I had the same trouble with my set: while I entirely > rewrote some patches, I still felt Jan Blunck deserved primary > credit. I don't recall my solution, but I'm fine with mentioning my > name in the commit message (and I think Jan should get credit too). That's what various *-by headers are for. Signed-off-by is for provenance. Nb. you can search the whole commit message in gitweb, not only author or committer. > In general, this is a big problem for motivating contributors in > other cases. Some maintainers have a habit of trivially rewriting > patches so that, technically, no line is the same, then taking > authorship and giving the actual author an ambiguous Signed-off-by. Maybe it was cause by tools accidentally stealing authorship? With "git commit --amend --author=..." it is now easy to add authorship back. > David hasn't done this here, of course - these are major rewrites - > but when someone does all the hard work of finding and fixing a > problem, the credit shouldn't go to the person who prettied it up. > There is a line in the kernel doc saying how this should be handled, > suggested by Rusty, but it's not being followed. Link? > First class support for multiple authorship would be a big way to > motivate contributors. Well, multi-line commit headers were only recently added to git (when adding signed pull / singed commit stuff), but I think in many places git assumes single authorship, and it would be hard to change... There was some workaround that people doing pair programming invented, IIRC... -- Jakub Narebski