On 10/11/2012 11:16 AM, Albert ARIBAUD wrote:
Hi Scott,
On Thu, 11 Oct 2012 11:54:46 -0500, Scott Wood scottwood@freescale.com wrote:
On 10/10/2012 01:40:54 PM, Albert ARIBAUD wrote:
Re committer identity, I don't see the relationship with "by"
tags, and
especially with Singed-off-by, since the sign-off is not and must
not
be related to the committer of the patch, but to its author(s).
At least the way the Linux kernel uses the tag, both the original
author
of the patch /and/ anyone who applies the patch, cherry-picks the
patch,
... must add their S-o-b line. I think U-Boot isn't using that part
of
the model.
No, it isn't. IIUC, U-Boot's "Signed-off-by" is supposed to mean "I am (one of) the autor(s) of this patch".
Is this documented anywhere?
http://www.denx.de/wiki/U-Boot/DevelopmentProcess says, "U-Boot has adopted the Linux kernel signoff policy".
Please do read the Linux kernel signoff policy as laid out in Documentation/SubmittingPatches. Branch or subsystem maintainers should add their Signed-off-by only if they made modifications to the original patch in the process of applying it.
That's certainly not what I understand from reading that document. Can you please point out the part the states that policy?
(The part I think you may be talking about is that when you edit a patch, it is polite to add a note indicating what you changed *in addition* to adding your Signed-off-by tag):
Quoting that doc:
If you are a subsystem or branch maintainer, sometimes you need to slightly modify patches you receive in order to merge them, because the code is not exactly the same in your tree and the submitters'. If you stick strictly to rule (c), you should ask the submitter to rediff, but this is a totally counter-productive waste of time and energy. Rule (b) allows you to adjust the code, but then it is very impolite to change one submitter's code and make him endorse your bugs. To solve this problem, it is recommended that you add a line between the last Signed-off-by header and yours, indicating the nature of your changes. While there is nothing mandatory about this, it seems like prepending the description with your mail and/or name, all enclosed in square brackets, is noticeable enough to make it obvious that you are responsible for last-minute changes. Example :
Signed-off-by: Random J Developer <random@developer.example.org> [lucky@maintainer.example.org: struct foo moved from foo.c to foo.h] Signed-off-by: Lucky K Maintainer <lucky@maintainer.example.org>
and in particular, the following parts of that doc is what tells me that committers should always add S-o-b even if the commit didn't change:
Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1 By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:
...
(c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified it.
The Signed-off-by: tag indicates that the signer was involved in the development of the patch, or that he/she was in the patch's delivery path.