Re: [RFC] Proof of concept: Support multiple authors

On Monday 30 January 2017 12:48:52 Junio C Hamano wrote:

  https://public-inbox.org/git/?q=gmane:83880
  https://public-inbox.org/git/?q=gmane:146223
  https://public-inbox.org/git/?q=gmane:146886

Thanks for putting the links together. That's very useful as a reference.

The older discussions already cited the cost to update both in-tree
and out-of-tree tools not to barf when they see such a commit object
and one of the reason why we would not want to do this, and Ted Ts'o
gave us another excellent reason why not to do multiple author
header lines in a commit object header, i.e. "How often is that all
of the authors are completely equal?"

Just to give a bit of context: In the pair programming environment where I 
work we usually use non-personalized workstations and switch the keyboard 
between the two people working together quite frequently, sometimes every few 
minutes, or even within writing a commit message. There the person pressing 
the return button on the commit really does not have a special role. In this 
style of working I think it feels like the fairest and most practical 
assumption to treat all authors as equal.

My advice to those who want to record credit to multiple authors is
to treat the commit author line as recording the primary contact
when there is a question on the commit and nothing else.  Anything
with richer semantics is better done in the trailer by enriching the
support of trailer lines with interpret-trailers framework.

Thanks for the advice. I think I will explore this direction a little bit 
further and see how handling a situation of multiple authors could be better 
done in this framework.

-- 
Cornelius Schumacher [off-list ref]