"commit --author=..." does not work if global email and name is not set

Hi,

I have a repo downloaded on machines which do automatic tests. Sometimes I want to make a quick fix there and push back to origin. Reading git-commit docs I had impression that I can use "--author=me" and it will work. But it requires setting global user name and email:

======================================================== $ git commit --author=pkruk

*** Please tell me who you are.

Run

  git config --global user.email "you@example.com"
  git config --global user.name "Your Name"

to set your account's default identity. Omit --global to set the identity only in this repository.

fatal: unable to auto-detect email address (got 'some@default.(none)') ========================================================

I do not want to set the default name/email, because I want commits to have real names, and not some "automatic test account" info. For pushing back to origin I already have to use a read-write SSH key, but lack of default name/email would prevent accidental commits (people WILL forget to use --author ...).

Do you think changing git to not require default name/email if "--author" is specified is possible (and hopefully easy and quick to implement ;))?

Thanks,