Re: Nobody is THE one making contribution

From: Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>
Date: Dec 24, 2020, 05:19 UTC
Message-ID: <5fe424d0528a2_7855a208d3@natae.notmuch>
In-Reply-To: <87r1ngufmf.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com>

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:

Show 16 quoted lines

> On Wed, Dec 23 2020, Felipe Contreras wrote:
> 
> > When I express my dissenting opinion I'm not saying nobody should write
> > a patch on top of mine. Of course they can. Anybody can take my code and
> > do whatever they want with it (as long as they don't violate the license
> > of the project).
> >
> > What they cannot do is add my Signed-off-by line to code I don't agree
> > with.
> 
> I don't think that's what Signed-off-by means, per SubmittingPatches:
> 
>     To improve tracking of who did what, we ask you to certify that you
>     wrote the patch or have the right to pass it on under the same
>     license as ours, by "signing off" your patch[...under the DCO:
>     https://developercertificate.org/]

Yes, but the DCO requires (d):

  d. I understand and agree that this project and the contribution are
     public and that a record of the contribution (including all personal
     information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is maintained
     indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with this project or
     the open source license(s) involved.

We can narrow down the part I'm talking about:

  d. I *agree* that a record of the contribution is maintained
     indefinitely.

I don't agree with that.

Moreover, the relevant definition of "sign off" in English in my opinion is [1]:

  to approve or acknowledge something by or as if by a signature (sign
  off on a memo)

If I didn't put my "signature" in a commit, then it's not signed off by me.

Show 7 quoted lines

> So I find this rather unlikely, but let's say I author a patch for
> git.git and send it to this ML with a Signed-off-by.
> 
> If someone else then takes that patch and changes it in a way that I
> vehemently disagree with and gets Junio to accept it into git.git in its
> altered form, that altered patch should still carry my Signed-off-by, as
> well as that of whoever altered it.

I don't think so.

Even if you disregard clause (d) of the DCO, in English you didn't "sign off" on that particular version of the patch.

> "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor" is an integral part of
> free software & open source. In our case it means that when you
> contribute code under our COPYING terms someone else might use in a way
> you don't approve of.

Yes, you just have to make the record straight; do your changes in a separate commit without my "sign off".

> E.g. I'm sure that arms contractors, totalitarian regimes etc. or other
> entities some might disapprove of are using git in some way.

Yes, and you can modify my patch and keep my s-o-b, I'm not going to sue you.

I just don't think that's right.

> That non-restriction on fields of endeavor also extends to individual
> patches licensed under a free software license & the necessity to
> maintain a paper trail about who their authors are and if they certified
> them under the DCO.

Sure, so if you need to keep a paper trail about the copyright of the code, why would you risk that simply because the author didn't agree on the further changes.

Just do them on a separate commit. Problem solved.

> 1. As an aside, I haven't needed involvement from others to later
>    realize that an integrated patch of mine with my SOB maybe wasn't
>    such a good idea after all :)

Oh, me neither. But in this particular case I'm sure X is wrong, so I'm stating unequivocally that I think X is wrong.

Plus, in my experience I usually think X is the case, and it's not only after I roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty that I realize what's actually the case.

Changing your mind after you get your hands dirty is usually a good thing. Which is another reason why I like Linus Torvalds' phrase: "talk is cheap, show me the code".

Cheers.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sign%20off

-- 
Felipe Contreras