Re: [RFC PATCH 16/16] KVM: PPC: e500mc support

On 01/10/2012 02:37 AM, Avi Kivity wrote:

On 01/09/2012 09:29 PM, Scott Wood wrote:

quoted

quoted

Best to include their signoffs, if possible.

These patches are based in part on a bunch of different patches from
these people (for which I did receive signoffs).  I was reluctant to put
their signoff directly on the new patches, since I didn't want to make
it look like they had submitted the patch in anything resembling its
current form.  I wanted to give them credit for what they did, but not
blame for what I did with their code.

Signoffs are for assigning neither credit nor blame, but for
attributing authorship and affirming that a contributor has
the right to contribute code or pass it along.

That's its formal purpose, but some people draw other conclusions from
it regardless.  From Documentation/SubmittingPatches: "Rule (b) allows
you to adjust the code, but then it is very impolite to change one
submitter's code and make him endorse your bugs."

Please read the DCO at

https://lwn.net/Articles/437739/.

I've read it.  My signoff here qualifies based on (a) and (b).

        (a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I
            have the right to submit it under the open source license
            indicated in the file; or

Note "or in part".  The contributions in this patch were all produced by
Freescale employees on a work for hire basis (other than the extent to
which the code is derived from code already in the Linux kernel, which
is covered by (b)), and I am authorized to submit this work on
Freescale's behalf for inclusion into the Linux kernel under GPLv2.

I'm not trying to be difficult, just to avoid looking like it was a
patch passed more-or-less as-is from person to person.  When I resubmit,
I can put the sign-offs in with [scottwood@freescale.com: significant
rework] after them, or list them separately as part of the "based on..."
paragraph.

-Scott