From: "brian m. carlson" <sandals@crustytoothpaste•net>
To: Jeff King <peff@peff•net>
Cc: "Martin Ågren" <martin.agren@gmail•com>,
git@vger•kernel.org, "Junio C Hamano" <gitster@pobox•com>,
redoste <redoste@redoste•xyz>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] SubmittingPatches: allow non-real name contributions
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2025 22:42:58 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <aG7wcoy3gTzSd_4w@fruit.crustytoothpaste.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20250708225134.GB1180568@coredump.intra.peff.net>
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On 2025-07-08 at 22:51:34, Jeff King wrote:
> Yeah, I agree (and didn't know that before; thanks for mentioning). I
> think mostly I was just hoping that some of this reasoning and these
> pointers would make it into the commit message.
>
> The content of the patch looked OK to me, though I do still like the
> CNCF wording a bit better.
In case it isn't clear, I'll be sending a v2, probably this weekend with
more of this information and some updated wording.
I don't love the CNCF wording because I feel it's too ambiguously
worded. What is the "community"? The open-source community? My
neighbourhood? My friend group? Can a real name be a username or
handle that's distinct and unambiguous? What about communities where
people share the same name? (Debian has, or at least had, two
contributors who both have the exact same full legal name and can
therefore only be distinguished by handle.)
I also think redefining "real name" in that way is misleading and leads
to confusion that might put people off, especially those that are not
native English speakers. I know it's common for lawyers to redefine
language to mean something very precise but different from the language
that ordinary humans use[0], but that's ultimately dishonest and tends
to deceive and we shouldn't do it. Most people take the phrase "real
name" to mean something equivalent to "legal name", so we should use
language to describe the requirement that doesn't confuse or mislead
people when it's used without further context (such as in a social media
post).
By contrast, we suggest that `user.name` "conventionally refer to some
form of a personal name". That doesn't work here because I did intend
for us to allow handles or usernames, but Wikipedia describes it as "the
set of names by which an individual person or animal is known" and, due
to the use of the passive voice (an intentional choice, I'm sure) is
specifically ambiguous and allows lots of allowance for personal
circumstances.
I'll take some inspiration from the CNCF post and rephrase to make it
more approachable in v2.
[0] For instance, one time where I was told that my laptop's removable
battery was an "accessory" and was therefore not covered under warranty,
despite the fact that it was required for the machine to boot.
--
brian m. carlson (they/them)
Toronto, Ontario, CA
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2025-07-09 22:43 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 18+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2025-07-06 16:30 [PATCH] SubmittingPatches: allow non-real name contributions brian m. carlson
2025-07-06 19:36 ` Jacob Keller
2025-07-07 1:11 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-07-07 1:57 ` Ayush Chandekar
2025-07-07 3:06 ` Theodore Ts'o
2025-07-07 5:28 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-07-10 21:55 ` Jacob Keller
2025-07-07 9:40 ` Phillip Wood
2025-07-07 20:42 ` Jeff King
2025-07-08 7:10 ` Martin Ågren
2025-07-08 22:51 ` Jeff King
2025-07-09 22:42 ` brian m. carlson [this message]
2025-07-10 3:46 ` Jeff King
2025-07-10 4:25 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-07-16 0:25 ` [PATCH v2] " brian m. carlson
2025-07-16 4:44 ` Jeff King
2025-07-16 5:47 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-07-16 14:41 ` Junio C Hamano
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