Hi, Currently when we commit a patch, the git commit shows the commit in the name of the person who committed the patch to the trunk(committer) and by convention the committer mentions the name of the person who contributed the patch(contributor) in the commit message. Committers also need to make changes to CHANGES.txt to log the change for release notes etc. Git has a provision to distinguish between author(contributor) and the committer. I would like to propose another approach and hear your thoughts on this.
Commit a patch using the following command git am falcon-652-v2.patch If you have reviewed the patch as well then use -s option and git will append Signed-off-by: with your git handle in the extended commit message. This command uses the commit metadata in the patch to create a commit. It also adds a metadata of "signed off by" using the handle of the committer who is applying the patch. This way the commit is in the name of the contributor and sign off is in the name of the committer who committed the patch. Please note - Contributors will need to *squash* all commits into one before submitting the patch. If a patch consists of two commits, the command will create two commits in the trunk. *This behaviour is same as in a github pull request.* - Contributors will need to generate their patches using *git format-patch* command and not using the git diff command. - Contributors will also need to make the changes to CHANGES.txt *Pros:* - Biggest pro of this approach is that author of commit is the person who contributed this patch (this should compensate for the extra steps that the contributors need to make). - Commit messages will be more detailed and more relevant. Users can now add extended commit messages explaining the changes in more details and they will not be lost. - Will make committing a patch easier for a committer (less in numbers than contributors). Committers can use this approach to commit multiple patches in one go. Cheers Ajay Yadava
