From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:19:54 GMT
Subject: Re: git am mangles commit author name.
Message-ID: <20100716191954.GB16371@burratino>
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTimIkepwy93dYCu5mkdSMHNuh3dbMyxcHPl4hGmt@mail.gmail.com>

Hi Daniel,

Daniel F wrote: 

> would simply setting minimum length to 1 have any negative
> side effects?

I am not a git maintainer, but I would suggest writing a patch to do
that.  Then you can try it and see, and send us a copy of the patch
when reporting the results.

My guess is Linus wanted to make sure he had meaningful names in
patches he applies[1].  There is no technical limit I know of that would
lead one to forbid an author name longer than 60 characters, either.
So the questions are:

 - did any code learn to rely on those limits later?
 - are any _people_ relying on those limits now?

I suspect the answer to question 2, at least for the lower bound,
is no.

Hope that helps,
Jonathan

[1] See v0.99.2~51^2~21 (Start of early patch applicator tools for
git., 2005-04-11) for the original script.