[PATCH] Documentation/process: add Co-Developed-by: tag for patches with multiple authors

[PATCH] Documentation/process: add Co-Developed-by: tag for patches with multiple authors

[Greg Kroah-Hartman]

Sometimes a single patch is the result of multiple authors.  As git only
can have one "author" of a patch, it is still good to properly give
credit to the other developers of a commit.  To address this, document
the "Co-Developed-by:" tag which can be used to show other authors of
the patch.

Note, these other authors must also provide a Signed-off-by: tag as it
is their work that is being submitted here.

Reported-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>


diff --git a/Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst b/Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst
index 1b7728b19ea7..645fa9c7388a 100644
--- a/Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst
@@ -213,6 +213,11 @@ The tags in common use are:
    which can be found in Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst.  Code without a
    proper signoff cannot be merged into the mainline.
 
+ - Co-Developed-by: states that the patch was also created by another developer
+   along with the original author.  This is useful at times when multiple
+   people work on a single patch.  Note, this person also needs to have a
+   Signed-off-by: line in the patch as well.
+
  - Acked-by: indicates an agreement by another developer (often a
    maintainer of the relevant code) that the patch is appropriate for
    inclusion into the kernel.

Re: [PATCH] Documentation/process: add Co-Developed-by: tag for patches with multiple authors

[Thomas Gleixner]

On Thu, 16 Nov 2017, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:

> Sometimes a single patch is the result of multiple authors.  As git only
> can have one "author" of a patch, it is still good to properly give
> credit to the other developers of a commit.  To address this, document
> the "Co-Developed-by:" tag which can be used to show other authors of
> the patch.
> 
> Note, these other authors must also provide a Signed-off-by: tag as it
> is their work that is being submitted here.
> 
> Reported-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>

Reviewed-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>

> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst b/Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst
> index 1b7728b19ea7..645fa9c7388a 100644
> --- a/Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst
> @@ -213,6 +213,11 @@ The tags in common use are:
>     which can be found in Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst.  Code without a
>     proper signoff cannot be merged into the mainline.
>  
> + - Co-Developed-by: states that the patch was also created by another developer
> +   along with the original author.  This is useful at times when multiple
> +   people work on a single patch.  Note, this person also needs to have a
> +   Signed-off-by: line in the patch as well.
> +
>   - Acked-by: indicates an agreement by another developer (often a
>     maintainer of the relevant code) that the patch is appropriate for
>     inclusion into the kernel.
> 

Re: [PATCH] Documentation/process: add Co-Developed-by: tag for patches with multiple authors

[Borislav Petkov]

On Thu, Nov 16, 2017 at 02:23:09PM +0100, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> Sometimes a single patch is the result of multiple authors.  As git only
> can have one "author" of a patch, it is still good to properly give
> credit to the other developers of a commit.  To address this, document
> the "Co-Developed-by:" tag which can be used to show other authors of
> the patch.
> 
> Note, these other authors must also provide a Signed-off-by: tag as it
> is their work that is being submitted here.
> 
> Reported-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
> 
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst b/Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst
> index 1b7728b19ea7..645fa9c7388a 100644
> --- a/Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst
> @@ -213,6 +213,11 @@ The tags in common use are:
>     which can be found in Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst.  Code without a
>     proper signoff cannot be merged into the mainline.
>  
> + - Co-Developed-by: states that the patch was also created by another developer
> +   along with the original author.  This is useful at times when multiple
> +   people work on a single patch.  Note, this person also needs to have a
> +   Signed-off-by: line in the patch as well.
> +
>   - Acked-by: indicates an agreement by another developer (often a
>     maintainer of the relevant code) that the patch is appropriate for
>     inclusion into the kernel.

Having a second or third author and specifying that fact keeps popping
up during review and people keep screwing up the SOB chains, trying to
express that. So yes, it is a good idea to have a special tag for this.

Acked-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@suse.de>

-- 
Regards/Gruss,
    Boris.

Good mailing practices for 400: avoid top-posting and trim the reply.

Re: [PATCH] Documentation/process: add Co-Developed-by: tag for patches with multiple authors

[Jonathan Corbet]

On Thu, 16 Nov 2017 14:23:09 +0100
Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> Sometimes a single patch is the result of multiple authors.  As git only
> can have one "author" of a patch, it is still good to properly give
> credit to the other developers of a commit.  To address this, document
> the "Co-Developed-by:" tag which can be used to show other authors of
> the patch.
> 
> Note, these other authors must also provide a Signed-off-by: tag as it
> is their work that is being submitted here.

So this seems good, and I'm seeing no objections.  I can go ahead and
apply it and ship it upward.

That said, I do think that there should maybe be a mention in
submitting-patches.rst as well, since we have a fair amount of discussion
of patch tags there.  *Someday* we'll have nice organized documentation
that doesn't scatter this stuff around, but that's not this day...

Thanks,

jon

Re: [PATCH] Documentation/process: add Co-Developed-by: tag for patches with multiple authors

[Kees Cook]

On Thu, Nov 16, 2017 at 5:23 AM, Greg Kroah-Hartman
<gregkh@linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> Sometimes a single patch is the result of multiple authors.  As git only
> can have one "author" of a patch, it is still good to properly give
> credit to the other developers of a commit.  To address this, document
> the "Co-Developed-by:" tag which can be used to show other authors of
> the patch.
>
> Note, these other authors must also provide a Signed-off-by: tag as it
> is their work that is being submitted here.
>
> Reported-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>

I see no uses of this tag yet, and I'd like to get it right. If patch
v1 was written by author A, then heavily modified and sent by author B
to produce patch v2, what should the resulting states of git-author,
and tag order be? I'm assuming it should be:

git-author: B
...
Signed-off-by: A
Co-Developed-by: A
Signed-off-by: B

It's not clear to me if git-author should instead be A, and/or
Co-Developed-by should be B...

Thanks!

-Kees

-- 
Kees Cook
Pixel Security