Re: What shall we do with the GECOS field again?

From: A Large Angry SCM <gitzilla@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 19, 2005, 16:16 UTC
Message-ID: <432EE46F.9000806@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <pan.2005.09.19.14.47.51.811409@smurf.noris.de>

Matthias Urlichs wrote:

Show 8 quoted lines

> Hi, A Large Angry SCM wrote:
> 
>>Saying that the user's name is first and a particular punctuation 
>>character SHALL be the standard cut point and everyone not happy with 
>>the results should explicitly set the Git environment variables is the 
>>wrong approach.
> 
> I disagree. Standard add-user tools use the gecos field in one of two ways:

s/two/many/

> - fullname
> - fullname,and,some,other,cruft

- title,name and other stuff
- department, name and other stuff
- other punctuation, etc.

> 
> Sure, many organizations bake their own, but I'd argue that the majority
> doesn't.

The point is we should not be telling them what and how to put stuff in the GECOS field.

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>>AND/OR to include 
>>the what Git thinks the user's name name might be in the commit message
>>template they're editing (like the file list).
> 
> I think that's a good idea, as long as people are told how to change it
> (i.e., an envvar -- NOT by editing the file).

Yes.