Hi Wolfgang, On Thu, Oct 07, 2010 at 10:08:10AM +0200, Wolfgang Denk wrote: > In message <20101007073842.GP29673@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> you wrote: > > > > I really wonder why you care about the commit log. I would care more > > about the copyright statements in the code. (Nevertheless I consider it > > correct and fair to attribute in the commit log where the code is taken > > from.) > > The introduction of the Signed-off-by: system to the Linux kernel has > been a significant improvement to make the origin of each and every > line of code clear, independent of the copyright statements which > quite often only list the original authors, even if the current file > does not contain much of the original code any more. Yep, it's a hard job to keep copyright statements up to date (and sensible). Updating the in-file statements is the best thing the barebox people can do now. > I think it i quite instructive to re-read the "12) Sign your work" > section of the Linux kernel's "SubmittingPatches" document. I think > our situation is best covered by the notes to back-porters there: > > | Special note to back-porters: It seems to be a common and useful practise > | to insert an indication of the origin of a patch at the top of the commit > | message (just after the subject line) to facilitate tracking. For instance, > | here's what we see in 2.6-stable : > | > | Date: Tue May 13 19:10:30 2008 +0000 > | > | SCSI: libiscsi regression in 2.6.25: fix nop timer handling > | > | commit 4cf1043593db6a337f10e006c23c69e5fc93e722 upstream > | > | And here's what appears in 2.4 : > | > | Date: Tue May 13 22:12:27 2008 +0200 > | > | wireless, airo: waitbusy() won't delay > | > | [backport of 2.6 commit b7acbdfbd1f277c1eb23f344f899cfa4cd0bf36a] > | > | Whatever the format, this information provides a valuable help to people > | tracking your trees, and to people trying to trouble-shoot bugs in your > | tree. > > Note that this is not only a topic from the point of code > attribution, but also from the point of bug tracking and quality > insurance. I consider it a good thing in general. I definitely > want to have this in U-Boot myself. full ack. But the impression I got on your first mails is not that you care much about bug tracking and quality assurance in barebox. I thought it's more about missing fame for U-Boot and it's contributors. And it needs an adaption if you copy code that was added and changed by several commits. Then I would not add the "original" Sobs to my commit log, only reference the HEAD commit where the code is taken from.) > > I don't know if you want to make it easier for people to get the > > annotations right/better when copying from U-Boot or not. But if you > > do, you could change your standard copyright header to include the > > project's name. Something like: > > Hm... we could do that, of course. But what exactly would it help or > change? If Joe Developer copies a file from U-Boot to barebox, he automatically get's the in-file attribution right/better. > This is not done in Linux, either... So you scruple to make U-Boot better than the Linux kernel? ;-) In the section "How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs" of the GPL-2 it's even suggested to add <one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.> I prefer my suggestion, but YMMV. Best regards Uwe -- Pengutronix e.K. | Uwe Kleine-König | Industrial Linux Solutions | http://www.pengutronix.de/ | _______________________________________________ barebox mailing list barebox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/barebox
