Hi brian
On 06/07/2025 17:30, brian m. carlson wrote:
Our submission guidelines require people to use their real name, but
this is not always suitable for various reasons.
For people who are transgender or non-binary and are transitioning or
who think they might want to transition, it can be a major obstacle and
cause major discomfort to require the use of their real name. This is
made worse by the fact that Git provides no way to change names built
into history, so the use of a deadname is forever. Our code of conduct
states that we "pledge to act and interact in ways that contribute to an
open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive, and healthy community," and
changing this policy is one way we can improve things for contributors.
In addition, there are some developers who are so widely known
pseudonymously that they have a Wikipedia page with their handle and no
real name. It would seem silly to reject patches from people who are
known and respected in their open-source community just because they
don't wish to share a real name.
There are also other good reasons why people might operate
pseudonymously: because they or their family members are well known and
they wish to protect their privacy, because of current or past
harassment or retaliation or fear of that happening in the future, or
because of concerns about unwanted attention from government officials
or other authority figures. As much as possible, we want to welcome
contributions from anyone who is willing to participate positively in
our community without having them worry about their safety or privacy.
These are all good reasons why someone might not want to contribute
under their real name and I agree we should accommodate that if we can.
I do think though that we should run this change past an license
enforcement expert at Conservancy to check that it does not materially
alter our ability to enforce the license. Assuming Conservancy are happy
then I think this change is a good idea.
Thanks
Phillip
In all of these cases, we should allow people to proceed using a
preferred name or pseudonymously if, in their best judgment, that's the
right thing to do. State that it is common to use a real name but
explicitly mention that contributors who are not comfortable doing so or
prefer to operate pseudonymously or under a preferred name can proceed
otherwise. Use "some form of your real name" since some current
contributors use shortened forms of their name or use initials, which
have always been considered acceptable.
Retain the prohibition on anonymous contributions that the Linux kernel
has to ensure that we have some line of provenance to a known (if
pseudonymous) author who might be able to respond to questions about it.
This helps guide people who would be fine using their real name but have
misconfigured `user.name` thinking it is intended to be a username or is
used for authentication (despite our documentation to the contrary), but
also allows for a variety of circumstances where the contributor would
feel more comfortable not doing so.
Additionally, retain the section header ID for ease of linking across
versions.
Signed-off-by: brian m. carlson <sandals@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
I don't claim that this is the best possible wording and I'm open to
changing it. The term "known identity" comes from Linux, but if we
need to clarify using different language or otherwise change any part of
this up, we can do so.
Documentation/SubmittingPatches | 7 +++++--
1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
index 958e3cc3d5..a4f4ca0205 100644
--- a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
+++ b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
@@ -408,8 +408,11 @@ your patch differs from project to project, so it may be different
from that of the project you are accustomed to.
[[real-name]]
-Also notice that a real name is used in the `Signed-off-by` trailer. Please
-don't hide your real name.
+Please use a known identity in the `Signed-off-by` trailer, since we
+unfortunately cannot accept anonymous contributions. It is common to use some
+form of your real name. We realize that some contributors are not comfortable
+doing so or prefer to contribute under a pseudonym or preferred name and we can
+accept your patch either way.
[[commit-trailers]]
If you like, you can put extra trailers at the end:
