Re: [PATCH v6 11/21] range-diff: add tests

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 11:03:10AM -0400, Jeff King wrote:

> > Hmm. I hoped that my commit message was enough to indicate that while he
> > is the author, I assembled this. Maybe I should move him to the footer, as
> > an Original-Authored-By:?
> 
> I think the "Author" field is actually distinct from the copyright
> provenance. In this case it ought to be perfectly fine to add your
> signed-off-by under the DCO's point b:
> 
>   The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best
>   of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source
>   license and I have the right under that license to submit that
>   work with modifications [...]
> 
> This is based on the tests in tbdiff, which is explicitly GPL'd by
> Thomas. So your signoff certifies that, which is fine.
> 
> As for the author field, IMHO it serves two purposes:
> 
>   - to give credit where it is due
> 
>   - so that people digging in history know who to contact for
>     questions/problems
> 
> In this case it probably makes sense for it to be you, as you'd take
> responsibility for the code in _this_ project. And as you note, you can
> give credit in the commit message (the only unfortunate thing is that
> most automated statistics would not credit Thomas, but in theory they
> could by mentioning him in the trailer).

One thing I should have made clear: this is all my opinion, and anything
Thomas expresses trumps that. But since he hasn't been active lately,
this is all what I would do in the absence of input from him. Obviously
a sign-off from him is better than none. :)

-Peff