The reason of adding the Signed-off-by is to have a better understanding
of whom have been involved in particular commits/patches. While the
"Author field" in the git log (git log --pretty=fuller) can only have
one name, more people can have been involved in the patch. Using the
Signed-off-by is a way to credit them as well.
And when everyone is consistent using the Signed-off-by line, writing
tools which parses our git log is also far more easier.
The other aspect of the Signed-off-by: line has to do with juridical
stuff, to protect the OpenVPN project. By adding the Signed-off-by:
line you basically sign-off to "Yes, I am the author of these changes
and I am permitted to share them with the project". For more
information, these pages explains it even better (same info, two
different sources):
<https://git.eclipse.org/r/Documentation/user-signedoffby.html>
<https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Documentation/SubmittingPatches#n409>
Hi David,
Looks like the rationale for Signed-off-by by is not properly documented
in Trac:
<https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki/DeveloperDocumentation>
David: do you want to integrate above explanation to Trac or shall I?
--
Samuli Seppänen
Community Manager
OpenVPN Technologies, Inc
irc freenode net: mattock
