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".
Actual behavior is probably inconsistent between custodians.
But that's not making the point (IMO) that we should have a
flurry of
branch names.
True, that's an entirely orthogonal issue. I mainly raised that
point as
an example from the kernel. What I really started this conversation about was not using rebases in either master or next, and the conversation has started to concentrate more on other things.
However, there are times when rebasing, and reordering even, might be required -- think, for instance, of an important patch that should be placed as early as possible in the next release, or inversely, a patch that was put in next release and now sits in the middle of other commits, but reveals faulty. There would be cause to pick this commit out of the next tree before it becomes master.
It's a tradeoff between preserving history and preserving bisectability. I wouldn't say it's ever really required except when there's a legal issue with carrying certain code in the history.
-Scott