Re: [RFD] Explicitly documenting patch submission

Kai Henningsen
2004-05-25T06:58:02Z

torvalds@osdl.org (Linus Torvalds) wrote on 25.05.04 in <1ZBgK-68x-3@gated-at.bofh.it>:

> On Mon, 24 May 2004, Albert Cahalan wrote:
> >
> > The wordy mix-case aspect is kind of annoying, and for
> > all that we don't get to differentiate actions.
>
> I actually really really don't want to differentiate actions. There's
> really no reason to try to separate things out, and quite often the
> actions are mixed anyway. Besides, if they all end up having the same
> technical meaning ("I have the right to pass on this patch") having
> separate flags is just sure to confuse the process.
>
> So what I want is something _really_ simple. Something that is
> unambigious, and cannot be confused with something else. And in
> particular, I want that sign-off line to be "strange" enough that there is
> no possibility of ever writing that line by mistake - so that it is clear
> that the only reason anybody would write something like "Signed-off-by:"
> is because it meant _that_ particular thing.

So it might be wise to add something approximately like this:

Signed-off-by: Random C Developer <rcd@example.net> For: Linux kernel

Sometimes, pieces wander from one project into another, and tracking that
as well could possibly help.

MfG Kai