Re: DCO: Was: Re: Contributing to gdb

Mark Wielaard
2025-01-15T11:06:00Z

Hi Luis,

On Tue, Jan 14, 2025 at 09:49:34AM +0000, Luis Machado via Gdb wrote:
> Also, I've seen DCO's being sold partially as a mechanism that
> doesn't require contributors to share personal information, due to
> privacy concerns. I don't think that is true from my reading of it,
> given we absolutely need to know how to reach out to the
> contributor/employer of the contributor in case the need arises. And
> that is not even considering things like the contributor passing
> away, disappearing etc.

There is indeed some confusion about anonymous and/or pseudonomous
contributions. Where the main issue really is that there is a
difference between someones "real" (legal) name and how they identify
themselves. Various projects have handled that in different ways. The
current proposed clarification [1] for the GCC project reads:

The name you use as your identity should not be an anonymous id or
false name that misrepresents who you are.

A known identity can be the committer's real, birth or legal name,
but can also be an established (online) identity. It is the name
you convey to people in the community for them to use to identify
you as you. The key concern is that your identification is
sufficient enough to contact you if an issue were to arise in the
future about your contribution. You should not deliberately use a
name or email address that hides your identity. When you wish to
only contribute under an (anonymous) pseudonym, or when you
require an explicit employer disclaimer, then following the FSF
assignment process is more appropriate.

Cheers,

Mark

[1] https://inbox.sourceware.org/gcc-patches/8faf15ae-1009-8da9-12c8-c0cd6a0ec9e4@pfeifer.com/