Practice of "Sponsored by" in commit messages

[Maxim Sobolev]

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! )

-Max

On Thu, May 17, 2018 at 4:29 PM, John W. O'Brien <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>> 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>>> 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>
> >     >
> >     >     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
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>
>