Re: [PATCH] git-multimail: update to version 1.0.0

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Apr 7, 2014, 18:56 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqd2gtm0id.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <1396884040-26014-1-git-send-email-mhagger@alum.mit.edu>

Michael Haggerty <mhagger@alum.mit.edu> writes:

Show 12 quoted lines

> ...
> Contributions-by: Raphaël Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
> Contributions-by: Eric Berberich <eric.berberich@gmail.com>
> Contributions-by: Michiel Holtkamp <git@elfstone.nl>
> Contributions-by: Malte Swart <mswart@devtation.de>
> Signed-off-by: Michael Haggerty <mhagger@alum.mit.edu>
> ---
> Junio, how would you like other people's contributions to be recorded
> within the Git project?  I have listed them above as
> "Contributions-by".  All of these people have signed off on their
> contributions (recorded in my GitHub repo).  So should I also/instead
> add "Signed-off-by" for those people?

Either is fine, as long as somewhere in that directory:

 - we make it clear that the copy we have in contrib/ is merely for
   "batteries included" convenience;

 - we refer to the canonical source that is your repository;

 - we tell readers to go there to get the authoritative and up to
   date copy, as what we have in contrib/ is possibly stale.

In the longer term, I have a feeling that we may be better off to make the "git core" tree not be the "batteris included" convenience tree, though. In the early days, Linus's rationale for including "gitk" held true: having tools that are not quite core is a good way to get people (especially those without C background) involved in the still-small project in its infancy to help nurture the developer community. The same reasoning stood behind the merging of "gitweb".

We already are beyond that stage, and good tools like iMerge and multimail that can stand on its own may be better off flourishing outside "git core" tree, still within the same developer community.