What's missing from our changelogs [LWN.net]

What's missing from our changelogs

Posted Jul 26, 2013 17:10 UTC (Fri) by aegl (subscriber, #37581)
Parent article: What's missing from our changelogs

You mention Linus not adding sign-offs to patches that he applies himself.

What would be the purpose of such a thing. So that Linus would know that he had claimed the legal authority to post the patch that he just wrote? It all seems a bit self-referential and involves too much of Linus talking to himself.

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What's missing from our changelogs

Posted Jul 26, 2013 20:23 UTC (Fri) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (2 responses)

I'm confused by this comment. Linus does sign off patches that he writes, or that he applies directly (not via a pull). And that makes sense; the purpose of a signoff isn't just for Linus to know, it's for the world to know who took responsibility for the patch. What he doesn't assign is version number updates.

What am I missing here?

What's missing from our changelogs

Posted Jul 26, 2013 21:35 UTC (Fri) by aegl (subscriber, #37581) [Link] (1 responses)

The world should be able to see "Author: Linus Torvalds" ... and not need anything else for patches that Linus applies himself (Things are a bit different when Linus writes a patch and then asks a sub-maintainer to apply it ... then there is some value in the Signed-off-by chain).

You called out specifically changes to version that add other data (pointing to the Linux for Workgroups logo). Would this really have been better if it had a "Signed-off-by:" line?

What's missing from our changelogs

Posted Jul 27, 2013 13:36 UTC (Sat) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

Again, Linus seems to think differently; he follows the same rules as everybody else for anything but version number tweaks. I think this makes sense; there's lots of kernel repositories, only one controlled by Linus. Adding an implicit "no signoff means signed-off-by: Linus" rule for all of them strikes me as inconsistent and weird.

As for whether he signs off on a version number change, it doesn't matter that much. I was just describing the data for the curious.