[Mageia-dev] Contributors using real name/working email? or not? or maybe?

Thu Mar 3 17:13:23 CET 2011

Romain d'Alverny a écrit :
+>
+> Hi there,
+>
+> in the past few days/hours, on sysadmin list has a discussion arisen
+> about publishing packager email into commit/change log; you can check
+> the whole thread, here are three starting points of it:
+>
+>   * https://mageia.org/pipermail/mageia-sysadm/2011-March/002946.html
+>   * https://mageia.org/pipermail/mageia-sysadm/2011-March/002952.html
+>   * https://mageia.org/pipermail/mageia-sysadm/2011-March/002955.html
+>
+> And you would perhaps like to read the whole thread; not everyone
+> agrees there. The discussion slipped to whether:
+>   * packagers/contributors [sh|w]ould use&  publish their real name (as
+> registered in identity),
+>   * packagers/contributors [sh|w]ould publish their contact email (same),
+>   * in their contributions to the project (here, in the changelog),
+>   * if it should be strictly enforced or not, and why.
+>
+> for practical or personal reasons. It's a general, pretty key matter,
+> it's been rightly suggested to raise the point here, so here it is.
+>
+> We can't enforce anything unless we decide on this first and this
+> thread is here to gather views. What we (Council) will decide later on
+> about this depends on the outcomes of the discussion (and if we ever
+> decide or not btw). It will be part of the project's privacy policy.
+>
+> And please try to keep this discussion to the point, focused and
+> civilized; state your views, don't infer on others' ones, stay cool.
+> Or your point will become shallow and the discussion will be wasted.
+>
+> The points to decide here are:
+>   a) should a contributor provide a public email address, to be used in
+> changelogs, commits and everywhere her contribution to the project
+> needs an id or contact id? (for instance changelog, commit, document
+> authoring)
+>   b) should a contributor provide a real name for the same goals? or is
+> a fake name/alias ok, as long as there are people that do know/meet
+> the person?
+>
+> I won't comment on pros and cons below (not exclusive of others), but
+> those were raised in the discussion before:
+>
+> The pros (as in "yes one should"):
+>   - that is the common way used in MDV and other major distributions
+>   - (email or name) it identifies the author of a change to the project/code
+>   - (email) it helps identifying&  contacting directly someone in the
+> project (peer review or any ad hoc matter)
+>   - (email&  name) it helps building confidence among contributors and
+> from the outside
+>   - (name) it encourages people to adopt a consistent behaviour
+>   - (email&  name) it builds one's contributions list for
+> future/outside reference
+>
+> The cons (as in "no, one should be free not to")
+>   - public email addresses get spammed
+>   - personal preferences to not reveal one's name
+>   - there are situations where anonymity is a requirement or "nice to
+> have" (from a personal or corporate point of view)
+>   - it will encourage people to contact directly contributors instead
+> of using other expected channels
+>
+> Note that one may use a fake name/identity anyway to stay anonymous
+> (but unless one already has a network of trust within a group, she
+> would not have a past public record to help building her new
+> reputation).
+>
+> What is at stake is the accountability for each contributor, hence for
+> the whole project. What will matter is what one does and how.
+>
+> And again, let's have this point discussed in a cool, informative,
+> constructive and efficient way, please.
+>
+> Cheers,
+>
+> Romain
+
+Personnally I like pseudo at mageia.org, with real name and direct adresse 
+optional.
+
+1) anyone who wants to can give a phony name anyway.
+
+2) @mageia.org lessens the personal spam problem, and looks more 
+official as well.  It will also give Mageia a higher profile, which is a 
+non-negligable side effect.
+
+3) a lot of contributors like myself aren't in it for the publicity.
+As well, they could have compelling reasons to remain anonymous.
+(Thus not giving their real email, for example.)
+
+my 2 cents :)
+-- 
+André
+