Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items for upcoming council meeting (2022-05-08)

[Rich Freeman]

On Thu, May 5, 2022 at 10:07 PM Mike Gilbert <floppym@g.o> wrote:
>
> On Thu, May 5, 2022 at 4:08 PM Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o> wrote:
> >
> > Since commits to the main repo without the signoff are going to get
> > rejected anyway, if we decide to go ahead with this would it make
> > sense to just have it abort by default if the config item or command
> > line parameter is missing?
> >
> > If a user really wants to commit without a signoff they can just set
> > --signoff=false, or the equivalent in the config file.
> >
> > Basically make it a non-optional parameter.
> >
>
> I think aborting is a bit extreme.
>

It isn't meant to be punitive - it is meant to save the user rework.

I get that you can also use it in overlays, but I suspect that 95% of
people who commit to overlays also end up committing or submitting PRs
to the Gentoo repo, and that means that missing a signoff is going to
cause them issues.

So you can either let the operation go through with a 95% chance that
it is wrong, then inform the user there is a 95% chance that they did
the wrong thing and they should go rebase their commit and fix it.  Or
you can just abort and ask them to confirm they really want to do what
they're doing by adding a simple command line option, which just
involves hitting the up arrow and adding it.

> Maybe a warning for a few releases, similar to how git has handled
> behavior changes.

That's great for the existing Gentoo dev who is transitioning, but not
the new contributor or dev who ends up finding out about their mistake
when they go to push a commit, or have their PR rejected for a missing
signoff.

This issue seems likely to hit almost every new user of the tool for
the indefinite future.  It is much easier to avoid the error than to
go back and fix it.

It isn't going to bother me personally one way or another since I
already added this to my config file, so it doesn't matter to me all
that much.  It just seems like not defaulting to shooting yourself in
the foot is a reasonable choice.  If the user wants to add the option
and turn it off then they can still do commits without signoffs if
they don't want to contaminate their repo with harmless headers.

Besides, the whole argument for making this not default to signing
everything is that signing should be a deliberate choice.  In that
case, shouldn't NOT signing ALSO be a deliberate choice?

-- 
Rich