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

[Chris Hegarty]

Dmitry,

On 12/05/2013 23:42, Dmitry Samersoff wrote:
> Mark,
>
> I did some experiments on weekends and I'm against of using -u option
> under any circumstances.

There are valid usecases for '-u'. For one, sync'ing from upstream 
projects, Doug's CVS comes to mind.

-Chris.

>
> People sponsoring changeset can make a mistake - most obvious one is
> wrong merge conflict resolution. If it happens we are loosing the way to
> solve the problem quickly - author know nothing about conflict but we
> have no obvious record about sponsor.
>
> So I think we have only two options (leaving aside extra repo)  -
>
> a) author prepare changeset by it's own and sponsor acts just as slow
> bot - all problems transmitted back to author.
>
> b) author send a webrev and sponsor uses Contributed-by: field to
> respect credits.
>
> -Dmitry
>
>
> On 2013-05-10 01:47, 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
>>
>
>