Dear Tom,
In message 5079D95E.4070609@ti.com you wrote:
While also IANAL (and I try and stay out of these discussions), paging around in the kernel log it sure seems like Linus and akpm both add S-O-B when they git am something in (perhaps why there is git am --signoff?) but not when it comes via pull request. In other words, up until the point it goes into intended-to-be-pulled-somehow-someway git, whomever is presenting the work adds one (or more) to say I (we) worked on it and yes, applies as well as the person bringing it in (I touch this and believe it to be).
Yes, git am has such an option. But git fetch (or pull) does not. I see no technical difference if someone provides me a patch as such, or in form of a git repository with this patch applied so I can just "git fetch" from it. In both cases the result would be exactly the same: I add the patch to my local repository. But in one case I am supposed to sign it (and tools offer me options to do so), but in the other case I cannot do that, even if I wanted?
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk