From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.ciao.gmane.io!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Why are so many great packages not trying to get included in GNU Emacs? Date: Thu, 07 May 2020 21:40:34 +0300 Message-ID: <83d07fk2ql.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87tv0ra9uk.wl-lukeshu@lukeshu.com> Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="ciao.gmane.io:159.69.161.202"; logging-data="97831"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Luke Shumaker Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Thu May 07 20:41:35 2020 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1jWlSh-000POO-JT for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Thu, 07 May 2020 20:41:35 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:52766 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jWlSg-0000oI-L4 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Thu, 07 May 2020 14:41:34 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:44922) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jWlS5-0008IR-20 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 07 May 2020 14:40:57 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:56548) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jWlS4-00039B-Dy; Thu, 07 May 2020 14:40:56 -0400 Original-Received: from [176.228.60.248] (port=4652 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1jWlRw-0001mz-QG; Thu, 07 May 2020 14:40:49 -0400 In-Reply-To: <87tv0ra9uk.wl-lukeshu@lukeshu.com> (message from Luke Shumaker on Thu, 07 May 2020 14:17:07 -0400) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 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-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:249197 Archived-At: > Date: Thu, 07 May 2020 14:17:07 -0400 > From: Luke Shumaker > Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org > > > How could that be possible? How would we know who wrote those > > changes? We can't assume it is the person whose account checked them > > in. Often that is so, but not always. > > Git tracks separate "committer" and "author" information (both of > which are name/email/timestamp). Unfortunately, it only allows > exactly one author; limiting the case where a change has 2 > collaborators. > > > There may be other issues, such as, if the name on that account is > > John Doe, does that mean the user of that account is the same John Doe > > that signed an assignment? > > Git tracks both name and email. Surely assuming jdoe@foocorp.com is > the same jdoe@foocorp.com that signed the assignment is a safer > assumption? > > Of course, that can be intentionally spoofed. I'm not sure whether > the concern is about accidentally mixing up two people, or about > someone maliciously misrepresenting the authorship. If the concern is > malicious misrepresentation, then this could be solved with > GPG-signing of either the emails with the patches, or the Git commits > (which is something that Git supports). It doesn't have to be malicious. Mistakes happen much more frequently. I caught myself several times forgetting to say --author when committing (fortunately before pushing, so I could fix that in time). Or the committer may not be aware how important it is to state the author accurately, because many people are unaware of the legal implications. Or the code could be by more than one author. Or the author could have more than one email address, and use them interchangeably, unaware of the identification problem this creates. Or any number of other similar issues, which are minor for most of us, but can be crucial if the code will need to be defended in court.