On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 14:07, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > And if it doesn't have meaning, then it's just > annoying and will never ever be attached to > anything relevant long-term. You've actually just described the current name/email system. What a uuid provides is that very property of long-term attachment; a git user can change the name/email pair but keep the same uuid. You see, the problem is that the name/email pair isn't really an identifier; it's actually just info about the user's current email account, which is very useful for everyday workflow, but pretty naive for historical identification over long periods of time. As previously discussed in my original email, the 'email' portion of the name/email pair is the most volatile portion, and that's because it's only tangentially related to identity (and it certainly has nothing to do with long-term identity). >There is absolutely _no_ way that teh uuid would > ever actually encode any real meaningful > information that isn't better represented by the > name/email. It IS a name/email pair (if you want or if that is enforced); it's just one that isn't as volatile. This notion of a uuid is an attempt to adopt a BETTER MODEL for identity: The user get's to choose a piece of information that he himself deems a longterm identifier; it's not about what address you currently use for email, it's solely about who you are over a long period of time. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html