PROPOSED: That we adopt a "signed-off-by" procedure as detailed in [1]
and [2] and put in place an automatic check to ensure that all new
contributions are signed off.
1. What is Signed-off-by?
Signed-off-by explicitly documents the author's assertion that her work
is licensed appropriately for LinuxCNC. In general terms, this means a
license that is recognized as compatible with the GNU GPL version 2 with
the "or later" clause; for files which specify a more liberal license
such as LGPLv2.1, the author asserts compatibility with this license
as well. For more details, refer to the actual text of the proposed
documentation.
Signed-off-by is used by the Linux kernel project, the git project, and
is promoted by the Linux Foundation as a good practice[3][4].
2. Is Signed-off-by different than the status quo?
Except for one line in each commit message, no. The expectation has
always been that each person pushing a commit asserts that she has the
right to do so, and that the contents of the commit are under a
compatible license. This has simply been an *implicit* expectation
until now, which it is better to make *explicit*.
3. Does Signed-off-by take away any rights of the original author?
No. Each author retains the right to offer her work under various
licenses, and other rights under copyright law. No other legal entity
gains any right to offer the author's work under an incompatible
license. Signed-off-by is not a copyright assignment.
4. How do I sign off?
Specify the "-s" argument to "git commit", or use the "sign off" button
in git gui.
Because it is easy to forget to sign off, an automatic check will be
added for sign-offs in the linuxcnc.org git server. Once this automatic
check is added, any push which includes commits authored after the
cutoff date that are not signed off will be rejected with an explanatory
message. Something like this:
The following commit was authored after October 5, 2014 and is not
signed off:
axis: rewrite in QT5
Push rejected. Add signed-off-by before pushing again.
See docs/SubmittingPatches for more information.
5. Timeline
Assuming that this proposal is approved in the September 28 meeting, I
intend to merge the signed-off-by documentation to 2.5, 2.6, and master
branches that day, and have the automatic signed-off check working by
October 5 in collaboration with Chris Radek.
[1]
http://media.unpythonic.net/git/?p=linuxcnc-jepler.git;a=blob_plain;f=docs/SubmittingPatches;hb=refs/heads/jepler/signed-off-by
[2]
http://media.unpythonic.net/git/?p=linuxcnc-jepler.git;a=blob_plain;f=docs/developer-certificate-of-origin;hb=refs/heads/jepler/signed-off-by
[3] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1635433
[4] http://developercertificate.org/
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