Subject: just can't live without a user.name

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 07:20:56 +0800

Actually it's all git's fault for not working if user.name is null or
unset. Ask yourself, would email programs panic if all there was only
[email-masked] in a header?
> But we need a user.name for legal reasons.
But there should be a way to override it, in case those laws don't apply.
I want
  Author: [email-masked]
like my email address above. But the closest I can get is
  Author: jidanni <[email-masked]>
And then there are some programs that need
$ git config --global user.name $USER
just to get that, else the springs come loose:
$ git-format-patch -s
*** Please tell me who you are.
Run
  git config --global user.email "[email-masked]"
  git config --global user.name "Your Name"
to set your account's default identity.
Omit --global to set the identity only in this repository.
fatal: empty ident  <[email-masked]
> not allowed