[llvm-dev] Attribution of patches when committing for someone else

[Aaron Ballman via llvm-dev]

On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 9:57 PM Daniel Sanders via llvm-dev
<llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> While committing a patch today for someone who currently lacks commit access, I realized I had forgotten the 'Patch by' line and reverted & re-committed to add it. However, while doing so I wondered if our current policy on this still makes sense.
>
> Our policy at http://llvm.org/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html#commit-messages currently contains these two points:
> > Separate the commit message into title, body and, if you’re not the original author, a “Patch by” attribution line (see below).
> > Attribution of Changes should be in a separate line, after the end of the body, as simple as “Patch by John Doe.”. This is how we officially handle attribution, and there are automated processes that rely on this format.
>
> Given that we now use git which tracks the author and the commiter separately. Does it still make sense to add these 'Patch by' lines? Or should we update the policy so that it refers to making sure the author field has the correct attribution. In my opinion, we should update the policy.

+1 for updating the policy. FWIW, I had assumed attribution rules
changed when we switched to git and had access to --author when
committing, so I've already stopped adding "Patch by" to the commit
log in those cases.

~Aaron

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