From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2022 21:24:48 GMT
Subject: Re: Dealing with corporate email recycling
Message-ID: <xmqq1qz4p6qn.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <697d8717-bd3f-0871-d5b3-e6303c4ed726@iee.email>

Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.email> writes:

> On 13/03/2022 23:16, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> Sean Allred <allred.sean@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> rather than use magic comments :-) Adapting to your suggestion, this
>>> might look like the following:
>>>
>>>     A. U. Thor <foo@example.com> <ada.example.com> <[ approxidate ]>
>> You'd probably want a timerange (valid-from and valid-to), instead
>> of one single timestamp?
> I'm not so sure that the date range approach won't bring it's own
> problems. What happens outside the date range? i.e. Do we then have
> three identities: Before, During, and After, with only 'During' being
> defined?

I have been assuming that the default is "what the commit has is
correct".

> I more see a single date being used as a termination point for an
> existing email sequence that defines a retrospective end point for the
> mapping of the old email addresses to a single person.

Implicitly specifying the valid-from date (which is either the
beginning of time, or the newest of valid-until time for the same
identifying string that is older than the valid-until date for the
entry in question) is fine.  I do not see fundamental difference
between the approach you suggest and having an explicit valid-from
date.