From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Eric S. Raymond" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Mangled and unclear attributions in the Emacs history Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 14:04:54 -0400 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs Message-ID: <20140331180454.GA28200@thyrsus.com> References: <20140331143925.283A3380492@snark.thyrsus.com> <53397FA9.2070102@cs.ucla.edu> Reply-To: esr@thyrsus.com NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1396289163 16466 80.91.229.3 (31 Mar 2014 18:06:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 18:06:03 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Paul Eggert , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eric Hanchrow Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Mar 31 20:05:59 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1WUgam-0005ic-2v for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 20:05:52 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:50543 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WUgal-00024N-Jm for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 14:05:51 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:35992) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WUgae-00022X-LS for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 14:05:49 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WUgaL-0003gD-SL for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 14:05:44 -0400 Original-Received: from static-71-162-243-5.phlapa.fios.verizon.net ([71.162.243.5]:44425 helo=snark.thyrsus.com) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WUgaL-0003g0-On for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 14:05:25 -0400 Original-Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 0AE1B380492; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 14:04:54 -0400 (EDT) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 71.162.243.5 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:171222 Archived-At: Eric Hanchrow : > What Paul said. Eric's own rule of thumb was that the result of the > conversion should look as if git had been in use the entire time; that > would imply that the "name at the time of contribution" would have > been recorded. That is a good argument. But there is another kind of ID change that I don't think has the same kind of weight as the intentional change from "Michael" to "Thomas" Bushnell. Consider the differences between 1. Attribution to "Jan D. " vs.=20 "Jan Dj=E4rv " 2. Attribution to "Richard Stallman" vs. "Richard M. Stallman". =20 I don't think fixing these is problematic, because doing so does not change the name the person was using at time of contribution; rather, it restores parts of that name that were casually elided. The reason I care about coalescing such cases is because I think it helps everybody if (for example) "Jan Dj=E4rv" is a reliable single identity fo= r purposes of reputation measures, whether informal or formalized via something like Ohloh Kudos rank. "Thomas Bushnell" actually wants to have a different reputation, a different social identity, from "Michael Bushnell". That's the point of taking a religious name. "Jan D.", on the other hand, is not=20 intended to be a different reputational identity than "Jan Dj=E4rv" (or at least I assume it isn't Jan can correct that if he wishes). --=20 Eric S. Raymond