Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 31 Jul 2017 16:44:49 +0300 | From | "Kirill A. Shutemov" <> | Subject | Re: Problematic culture around Signed-off-by |
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On Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 03:34:11PM +0200, Adam Borowski wrote: > On Sun, Jul 30, 2017 at 08:52:36PM +0200, Pavel Machek wrote: > > > I've been away from kernel development for a bit, but I've returned and > > > I'm troubled by what seems to be an entrenched and widespread (IMO) > > > misuse of the "Signed-off-by:" in commits. > > > > > > I've now either been asked to sign off RFC quality patches "because its > > > quicker" on more than one occasion in the last week or so, and I've seen > > > others signing off code which clearly has no hope of going anywhere near > > > the kernel. (eg. // commented out lines) > > > > > > I was of the impression that Signed-off-by: was intended to be used on > > > essentially *finished* commits, indicating both readiness for inclusion > > > upstream and ones ownership of the copyright. > > > > > > Even if the intent is *purely* a copyright isue, Signing off > > > *everything* surely makes it far too easy for people to get junk into > > > the kernel. > > > > I normally sign-off everything... because getting patch without > > sign-off is nasty. If maintainer gets unclean, but signed-off patch, > > he can just clean it up, add his sign-off and continue normally. > > Yet there are cases with known but unobvious breakage (see below). > > > That may or may not be allowed if patch is not signed-off. (We are in > > lawyer teritory now.) > > > > So I'd recommend signing everything, and if patch is considered "not > > ready", make it clear in some other way. > > I think it'd be much better if you could suggest a new marker. Something > like "Copyright-but-not-Readiness-Signed-off-by:", "RFC-Signed-off-by:", > "WIP-Signed-off-by:", etc.
I use (and saw other people used) "Not-Yet-Signed-off-by:" for this purpose.
-- Kirill A. Shutemov
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