Re: Git Rebase blows away GIT_AUTHOR_NAME

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Jan 14, 2011, 15:41 UTC
Message-ID: <AANLkTi=Z6Dx6m68zi7Q1eRVxX3DXOyKj+Ff177UCQrAj@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTiksAZSi-Yo8yJv5ca9XWWvB3iVQhZOJtTs-F8gk@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 1:53 AM, Erik Faye-Lund <kusmabite@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

>
> Linus, you wrote sanity_check (from 2744b23). Do you remember if there
> were any specific reason for the minimum length of 3 of an
> author-name? It seems that in Sweden, legal names can be even a single
> letter (see Tor's comment)...

Even if the legal name would be a single letter, you'd still need to have a surname.

The three-letter minimum is just a sanity check. If your name really is even just three letters, I suspect you're just lying. I don't know of anybody named "A B".

That thing is supposed to be a *NAME*. Not shorthand. Not your first name. Not your nickname. If you have a nickname, put it in quotes inside the real name.

I've seen too many broken source control systems that just take your login as a name *cough*CVS*cough*, and then people think it's "convenient" and "cool" to have a short name.

It's not convenient. It's not cool. It's just shorthand where shorthand doesn't help. Then you end up using it in a public setting, and suddenly your cool shorthand or nickname isn't even remotely unique.

No, there is no uniquness "requirements" for the name, but come on. Look at shortlog output some day. We try to use just the name because it looks better. But if people don't use their full name, it just looks _stupid_

                                    Linus