Re: [PATCH v5 1/2] docs: Clarify the usage and sign-off requirements for Co-developed-by

[Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>]

On Fri, 22 Mar 2019 14:11:36 -0700
Sean Christopherson <sean.j.christopherson@intel.com> wrote:

> The documentation for Co-developed-by is a bit light on details, e.g. it
> doesn't explicitly state that:
> 
>   - Multiple Co-developed-by tags are perfectly acceptable
>   - Co-developed-by and Signed-off-by must be paired together
>   - SOB ordering should still follow standard sign-off procedure
> 
> Lack of explicit direction has resulted in developers taking a variety
> of approaches, often lacking any intent whatsoever, e.g. scattering SOBs
> willy-nilly, collecting them all at the end or the beginning, etc...
> Tweak the wording to make it clear that multiple co-authors are allowed,
> and document the expectation that standard sign-off procedures are to
> be followed.
> 
> The use of "original author" has also led to confusion as many patches
> don't have just one "original" author, e.g. when multiple developers
> are involved from the genesis of the patch.  Remove all usage of
> "original" and instead call out that Co-developed-by is simply a way to
> provide attribution in addition to the From tag, i.e. neither tag is
> intended to imply anything with regard to who did what.
> 
> Provide examples to (hopefully) eliminate any ambiguity.

I've applied this.  Joe, do you want to handle the checkpatch.pl patch, or
would you prefer I take that one too?

Thanks,

jon