Hi Simon,

> I cannot find any documentation on what Signed-off-by means for a commit
> in gnulib, but we do use it more than rarely (see below).

So far, it means nothing in Gnulib.

<https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1962094/> explains that it is mainly
used in the Linux kernel. Taking an arbitrary commit:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=58a039e679fe72bd0efa8b2abe669a7914bb4429
it seems that
  - Signed-off-by means the authors of the patch,
  - Tested-by
  - Reviewed-by have the obvious meanings,
  - and the Linux subsystem maintainer can also add a 'Signed-off-by'.

> I think the traditional meaning is that a commit complies with
> rules including licensing, which doesn't really make sense for GNU
> projects that have other policies that govern that.

Right. GNU packages that require a copyright assignment don't need
'Signed-off-by' with its traditional meaning.

> If we cannot explain what we want Signed-off-by: to mean, maybe we
> should avoid using them at all?  And enforcing that using some commit
> hook, if feasible.

Why bother? We can continue to ignore it.

Bruno




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