Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org designates 209.132.180.67 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.132.180.67;
Date:   Sat, 4 Apr 2020 18:15:41 +0000
From:   George Spelvin <lkml@SDF.ORG>
To:     Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@oracle.com>
Cc:     devel@driverdev.osuosl.org, Ajay.Kathat@microchip.com,
        gregkh@linuxfoundation.org, linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org,
        Adham.Abozaeid@microchip.com, johannes@sipsolutions.net,
        lkml@sdf.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3] staging: wilc1000: Use crc7 in lib/ rather than a
 private copy
Message-ID: <20200404181541.GC11944@SDF.ORG>
References: <20200326152251.19094-1-ajay.kathat@microchip.com>
 <20200402082745.GG2001@kadam>
 <20200402153034.GB2013@SDF.ORG>
 <20200403091029.GC2001@kadam>
 <20200403234028.GA11944@SDF.ORG>
 <20200404172537.GI2066@kadam>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
In-Reply-To: <20200404172537.GI2066@kadam>
Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org
Precedence: bulk

On Sat, Apr 04, 2020 at 08:25:37PM +0300, Dan Carpenter wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 03, 2020 at 11:40:28PM +0000, George Spelvin wrote:
>> I understand that it's addressed more to patch authors than
>> maintainers forwarding them, but I've read that thing a dozen times,
>> and the description of S-o-b always seemed to be about copyright.
> 
> It's to say that you didn't add anything which you shouldn't have, for
> example, secret SCO UnixWare stuff.

Yes, I'm familiar with the (irritating) history.  Which is why I
had the idea stuck in my head that that it was all about copyright
and if you didn't add anything copyrightable, an S-o-b wasn't
required.  No more than I'd ask for one from the administrator
of the e-mail system which delivered it.

submitting-patches.rst says "sign your work".  It didn't occur to
me to sign something that wasn't my work.

>> So I had assumed that edits which were below the de minimus standard
>> of copyright didn't need a separate S-o-b.
>> 
>> Am I right that there should be an S-o-b from everyone from the
>> patch author to the patch committer (as recorded in git)?  And the
>> one exception is that we don't need S-o-b for git pulls after that,
>> because the merge commits record the information?
> 
> Yes.  Also if people added their S-o-b for git merges it would change
> the git hash for the patch which would suck.

I understand the technical difficulties, but lawyers aren't always
deterred by such things. :-)  Seriously, it's clear there has to
be an exception; the question was about the scope of the exception.

Thank you for your patience clarifying this stuff for the nth time.