Linus on documenting patch provenance [LWN.net]

Linus on documenting patch provenance

Posted May 24, 2004 11:35 UTC (Mon) by jerven (guest, #21795)
In reply to: Linus on documenting patch provenance by tgape
Parent article: Linus on documenting patch provenance

All liability for damage in this case would be for the original patch submitter as he certified that he did not copy the code while he did.
Weird example if someone said he owned a house and he cerifies it and he then hires you to demolish the house so that he can build a garage or whatever. If he is in fact not the owner your liability for damages would be limited as you acted in good faith that you established by making him certify he owned the house. If you did not make him certify he owned the house you could be sued for carelessnes even though you still acted in good faith that he was the owner.

So when this hapens it is only messy for the employee who contribtuted illegally and he is fully responsible for all the damages he caused to his company. So this does not only depend on trust but on simply making sure that the top developers and capable of being held responsible for someones else failing. He certified he was allowed to submit this patch if he was not then the damage is his as he submitted in typing that he was the owner and the maintainer has shown due dilligence by having him certify that he owns it. Therefore I think this is a simple but effective idea.

The only problem is that antone can submit a fake id or tag and just insert someone elses name in suplying a patch. A digital signature should realy be included.

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