Practice of "Sponsored by" in commit messages
John W. O'Brien
john at saltant.com
Fri May 18 00:20:22 UTC 2018
On 2018/05/17 19:36, Maxim Sobolev wrote:
> Well, if your employer feels slighted it's for him to bring it up with
> you (see my previous rant on the amount and scope of the credit and who
> parties involved). And then for you to bring it up with me if you feel
> brave enough. :) I don't see how and why FreeBSD project can help in
> this highly hypothetical scenario by putting some rules around. Do we
> have any real-world examples of this happening, bring me at least one
> out of probably tents of thousands of times people used "Sponsored by"
> in their commit messages. Just a single one, please! )
The FreeBSD project could help by asking committers to qualify
"Sponsored by" lines to indicate which participant(s) is(are) sponsored,
in way that is equivalent to the way that the actual work itself is
customarily attributed.
Examples showing this idea in action:
r470149 | krion
PR: 228292 [1], 227223 [2]
Submitted by: maintainer [1], 0mp@ [2]
[Interpretation: The maintainer did some work to prepare a patch, 0mp
did some work to prepare a patch, and krion combined the patches and
performed the commit.]
r470018 | kan
Reviewed by: jhb, bapt
[Interpretation: kan prepared a patch, jhb and bapt reviewed it, kan
committed it.]
Examples where I perceive no problem:
r470130 | truckman
PR: 228172
Approved by: Leo Vandewoestijne <freebsd at dns.company> (maintainer)
Sponsored by: Farsight Security, Inc.
[Interpretation: truckman did the work on Farsight company time; Leo
signed-off, but did little or no work, and either doesn't have a sponsor
or chose not to credit the sponsor.]
r469997 | mat
PR: 228149
Reported by: Niels Bakker
Sponsored by: Absolight
[Interpretation: Niels called attention to a problem, but did little or
no work on producing a patch, and either doesn't have a sponsor or chose
not to credit the sponsor; mat did the work to produce a patch on
Absolight company time.]
Examples showing where improvement is needed:
r469984 | dteske
Reviewed by: mat (mentor; earlier version), imp (mentor), dbaio
Approved by: imp (mentor)
Sponsored by: Smule, Inc.
Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D15415
[Uncertainty: Was the review by mat, imp, and dbaio all done on Smule
company time? Doesn't mat work for Absolight? Maybe he was working on
his own time for this one. Maybe acting as a mentor takes hardly any
time. Possible improvements include "Sponsored by: Smule, Inc.
(dteske)", or "Sponsored by: Smule, Inc. (dteske), Absolight (mat)", or...]
r469709 | miwi
PR: 228117
Submitted by: maintainer
Sponsored by: iXsystems Inc.
[Uncertainty: Does the maintainer work for iXsystems too? Did the
sponsorship cover preparation of the patch or just the work to commit
it? Possible improvements include "Sponsored by: iXsystems Inc. (miwi)",
or "Sponsored by: iXsystems Inc. (miwi, maintainer)", or...]
Are non-committer contributors entitled to specify sponsorship credits?
Should I start requesting sponsorship credit under the name of my small,
one-man consulting operation? If I do, would that discourage committers
from taking my bugs who want to be able to credit their own employers
for the commit?
> On Thu, May 17, 2018 at 4:29 PM, John W. O'Brien <john at saltant.com
> <mailto:john at saltant.com>> wrote:
>
> On 2018/05/17 19:18, Maxim Sobolev wrote:
> > John, no, not really, sorry. Work is done, credit is given. The form and
> > amount of this credit is between whoever does the work and whoever is
> > being credited. I don't see why is there any third-party to be involved
> > in governing whether or not this credit is "appropriate", "sufficient"
> > or "all encompassing" for the work in question. This is just a credit,
> > it does not affect the quality of work, nor the license (which is
> > 2-clause BSD) nor the copyright holder. Three things that really matter
> > long-time. So "Sponsored by" it's just the message on the t-shirt,
> > having only meaning to whoever produces the piece and whoever wears it,
> > but nothing in particular to the outside world. IMHO.
>
> I fear that you and I are still not on the same page. The difference
> between a t-shirt and a commit message is that two or three or four
> people can all do work on the same commit, but only one person can wear
> a t-shirt.
>
> Taking the analogy further, if you hang a t-shirt with your employer's
> logo on a piece of work that you and I collaborated to produce, don't
> you think my employer might feel slighted? What if I had done 80% of the
> work?
>
> > On Thu, May 17, 2018 at 3:43 PM, John W. O'Brien <john at saltant.com <mailto:john at saltant.com>
> > <mailto:john at saltant.com <mailto:john at saltant.com>>> wrote:
> >
> > On 2018/05/14 20:14, Maxim Sobolev wrote:
> > > What's wrong with a current practice. Why is it of any concern to you,
> > > John? Just curious that is not very clear from your message. It is like
> > > someone trying to moderate what people in general or some group in
> > > particular (e.g. freebsd committers) are allowed to put on their
> > > t-shirts just because you find it offensive or inappropriate.
> >
> > I don't find crediting sponsors offensive nor inappropriate. Quite the
> > contrary. What I find problematic is when multiple people do work, not
> > all with sponsorship or the same sponsorship, and only one person's
> > sponsor is mentioned in a way that seems to imply that all the work was
> > sponsored.
> >
> > What I'm proposing is not to end or ban the practice, but to improve and
> > refine it so that sponsors are credited for what they sponsor and not
> > for what they don't sponsor.
> >
> > Is that clearer?
> >
> > > On Mon, May 14, 2018, 4:40 PM John W. O'Brien <john at saltant.com <mailto:john at saltant.com> <mailto:john at saltant.com
> <mailto:john at saltant.com>>
> > > <mailto:john at saltant.com <mailto:john at saltant.com>
> <mailto:john at saltant.com <mailto:john at saltant.com>>>> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hello FreeBSD Ports,
> > >
> > > The Committer's Guide section on Commit Log Messages [0],
> > doesn't cover
> > > the use of the "Sponsored by" key word. As a non-committer
> > contributor,
> > > it only recently occurred to me to wonder what work that
> credit is
> > > intended to represent, and whether some light definition
> would be
> > > helpful to reduce ambiguity.
> > >
> > > When a committer credits a sponsor of theirs, from which the
> > contributor
> > > received no sponsorship, the portrayal feels a little
> awkward.
> > Does this
> > > strike the list as a problem, and if so, how ought it be
> solved?
> > >
> > > To make this concrete, allow me to illustrate the situation.
> > >
> > > Alice, working on her own time, prepares and contributes a
> > patch. Bob,
> > > who works for Acme Corp, reviews and commits the patch on
> > company time.
> > > The commit message includes "Sponsored by: Acme Corp". Alice
> > eagerly
> > > awaits her check from Acme Corp. Should the commit message
> > have read
> > > "Sponsored by: Acme Corp (Bob)"?
> > >
> > > This could be extensible to multiple sponsorships. If,
> > instead, Alice
> > > prepares the patch having received a grant to do so from
> Best
> > Sys Dev,
> > > the commit message could state "Sponsored by: Acme Corp
> (Bob),
> > Best Sys
> > > Dev (Alice)".
> > >
> > > [0]
> > >
> >
> https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/committers-guide/article.html#commit-log-message
> <https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/committers-guide/article.html#commit-log-message>
> >
> <https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/committers-guide/article.html#commit-log-message
> <https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/committers-guide/article.html#commit-log-message>>
> > >
> > > PS: I realize that this issue transcends ports, but it's not
> > clear where
> > > I should send this instead, and this list seems like it
> would
> > have a
> > > reasonably high concentration of people with a stake in the
> > discussion.
--
John W. O'Brien
OpenPGP keys:
0x33C4D64B895DBF3B
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