Re: [gentoo-project] [RFC] GLEP 76: Copyright Policy

[Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org>]

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>>>>> On Sun, 17 Jun 2018, Kent Fredric wrote:

>> I don't see how any of this would prevent a committer from adding a
>> Signed-off-by line.

> Here, it just seems like unnecessary fluff, given the committer and the
> signed-off-by line should be identical.

The Signed-off-by line certifies agreement to the Gentoo DCO, whereas
the Commit line doesn't have any such meaning. Also the committer info
is somewhat transient and can change, e.g. when a branch gets rebased.
S-o-b lines won't get lost on a rebase.

> It makes more sense in the kernel, where patches get formatted with
> only author data, and the chain of custody from the border to its final
> commit in kernel@ is not necessarily completely obvious.

There are many commits in Linux that have only a single S-o-b line.

> Whereas in Gentoo, we don't really have any of those intermediate steps.

> Its more a question what it seeks to achieve that can't be done with
> existing data.

> Especially considering anyone can trivially forge such a statement
> and pretend they committed on somebody elses behalf after receiving a
> patch.

That's why we also require commits to be PGP signed.

> And I somewhat find the "real names" policy somewhat obnoxious, for as
> far as I'm aware, pseudonyms are just as legally binding as real names.

> Requiring a legal name just excludes people, and well known pseudonymous
> authors like "why_" would never participate in such a scheme.

The real name requirement is nothing new, but a policy that is in
effect since 2004 [1,2]:

| Real names must be provided for all developers, including
| infrastructure and documentation. Any exceptions to this for
| extenuating circumstances will be considered on a case-by-case
| basis. No exceptions will be made for people doing copyrightable
| work (ebuilds, software, scripts, documentation, etc.).

Ulrich

[1] https://sources.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/gentoo/xml/htdocs/proj/en/devrel/recruiters/index.xml?revision=1.15&view=markup
[2] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Recruiters/Recruiting#What_does_the_recruitment_process_involve.3F

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