Preserving changeset authorship (was Re: PING: [PATCH] Enable debug info on all libraries for OpenJDK builds)

[Phil Race]

 >   (Yes, this is one of those rare cases in which a sponsor should use 
the -u option.)

I'd hazard a guess that there are number of people who overlook this option
in part because they don't realise you can do

hg commit -u <SOMEBODY-ELSE> ...

I was kind of surprised myself when I first learned to do this as it
seemed odd that someone else could claim a changeset was from
another person. I thought you would need their private key to
be able to do that.

-phil.

On 5/9/2013 2:47 PM, mark.reinhold at oracle.com wrote:
> 2013/5/9 2:10 -0700, gnu.andrew at redhat.com:
>>> Indeed.  I do this with the Oracle patches when applying them to IcedTea.
>>> The problem is how this gets done is down to the sponsor; I've had ones
>>> that have been imported, ones where I've just been giving the Contributed-by
>>> attribution (despite having commit rights) and at least one with no credit at
>> ...
>>
>> An example I just came across when looking into an issue:
>>
>> changeset:   2657:46cb9a7b8b01
>> parent:      2647:ca1f1753c866
>> user:        dsamersoff
>> date:        Wed Aug 10 15:04:21 2011 +0400
>> files:       src/share/vm/runtime/os.cpp
>> description:
>> 7073913: The fix for 7017193 causes segfaults
>> Summary: Buffer overflow in os::get_line_chars
>> Reviewed-by: coleenp, dholmes, dcubed
>> Contributed-by: aph at redhat.com
>>
>> That should have had 'aph' as the user.  If you get the default output:
>>
>> changeset:   2657:46cb9a7b8b01
>> parent:      2647:ca1f1753c866
>> user:        dsamersoff
>> date:        Wed Aug 10 15:04:21 2011 +0400
>> summary:     7073913: The fix for 7017193 causes segfaults
>>
>> it looks like Dmitry wrote the fix.
> I'm sure there was no intent on Dmitry's part to try to claim credit for
> this fix.
>
> The most important principle to be maintained here is that people get
> proper credit for their work, as you wrote earlier.
>
> Beyond that, it's reasonable to prefer that credit be given in the "most
> obvious" way, in particular by using proper usernames, when available,
> in changesets.  If a sponsor makes a mistake, however, and winds up
> using a Contributed-by: line instead, then that's unfortunate but not,
> in my view, the end of the world.
>
> In general, if you have the Author role (or higher) in some OpenJDK
> Project then when you submit a change that requires a sponsor's help you
> should send a Mercurial patch (hg export) or bundle (hg bundle) with the
> proper username, summary, etc.  In normal circumstances the sponsor
> should not change the patch but merely make sure that it's properly
> tested, merged, and pushed.  If a change is required then the sponsor
> should ask the submitter to create a new patch or bundle.  If for some
> reason the sponsor must modify the patch directly then the hg -u option
> should be used, as appropriate, to preserve the submitter's user name in
> the changeset.  (Yes, this is one of those rare cases in which a sponsor
> should use the -u option.)
>
> Iris -- Could you please make a note to add guidance on this issue to
> the next revision of the developers' guide?  Thanks.
>
> - Mark