Re: format-patch signoff argument no longer works

From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: May 31, 2006, 19:02 UTC
Message-ID: <7vejyayq46.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <m2mzcycn4f.fsf@ziti.fhcrc.org>

Seth Falcon <sethfalcon@gmail.com> writes:

Show 7 quoted lines

> Matthias Kestenholz <lists@spinlock.ch> writes:
>
>> * Geoff Russell (geoffrey.russell@gmail.com) wrote:
>>> It appears to have got lost when the shell script got converted to C.
>>> 
>> Yes, this was intentional. You should sign off your changes while
>> committing (git commit -s|--signoff)

A bit on this later, but first to clear one thing up...

Show 5 quoted lines

> When should one commit _without_ signoff?  
>
> The obvious answer is: when one doesn't approve of the changes in the
> commit... But in my usual workflow, commit means
> works-for-me-I-think-it-is-good. :-)

Please, calm down and read Documentation/SubmittingPatches, item (6), to understand what sign-off means. It does not have anything to do with the result of the commit "working". I do not use -s when making commits during my day-job, for example.

We do not want to make sign-off the default. It has to be a concious act on the signer's part to add one. Otherwise it would not carry much weight.

About the droppage of "format-patch -s", I have come to think of it as a mistake (yes, I can change my mind). Consider:

 * You are the leader of a group of people who hack on a part of
   the kernel, internally in your company.  You and other
   developers make improvements and make commits, with "git
   commit -s".

 * As the in-company integrator, you maintain the canonical
   "company tree" by pulling from others in your group.

 * It's time to send good pieces to Linus and/or Andrew and as
   the group lead you are responsible for sending them out.  The
   commits would have Sign-off's by the original committers, but
   as the contact person (representative) of your group, your
   name is better recognizable in the outside community, and as
   the leader of your group, it is a good practice for _you_ to
   vouch for what your group did.

In that scenario, in addition to what "commit -s" gives us, it is handy for the person who is sending the patches out via e-mail to add his own sign-off.

Now, we could do that by re-adding "format-patch -s" option, or alternatively we could add that to "send-email". We might want to do both ;-)