site: send patches: Update the "Name not required" section.

GNU Boot might have to send some of the patches upstream so we can't
have a policy that applies to everything unless we also look into
upstream projects and GNU policies as well.

In addition we might need multiple ways to satisfy upstream
constraints to fit different needs / compromise from people wanting to
contribute anonymously.

And as the problem raised here is more global it is better to have a
more global answers and find ways that also work with upstream projects
as well.

Being a GNU project, GNU boot would also need to look into the GNU
policies on the topic and also try to see if for instance the FSF
copyright assignements could also be used in some cases to fix that
issue.

There are also other things worth looking into as well. For instance
Software Conservancy also handles copyright assignments and Asahi Lina
that contributes anonymously to the Linux kernel while satisfying
their very strict policy about tracking copyright ownership.

Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
This commit is contained in:
Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli 2023-11-15 00:42:56 +01:00 committed by Adrien 'neox' Bourmault
parent 722ed394a3
commit 4d4518a06a
Signed by: neox
GPG Key ID: 2974E1D5F25DFCC8
1 changed files with 28 additions and 16 deletions

View File

@ -109,28 +109,40 @@ inside the website-build directory.
Name not required
-----------------
Contributions that you make are publicly recorded, in a Git repository which
everyone can access. This includes the name and email address of the
contributor.
Many projects using free software licenses do accept contributions
from anyone but in many cases they also need to be able to track the
copyright ownership of the contributions for various reasons.
In Git, for author name and email address, you do not have to use identifying
data. You can use GNU Boot Contributor and your email address could be
specified as contributor@gnuboot. You are permitted to do this, if
you wish to maintain privacy. We believe in privacy. If you choose to remain
anonymous, we will honor this.
This usually makes anonymous or pseudonymous contributions more
complicated, but that doesn't make them impossible.
Of course, you can use whichever name and/or email address you like.
If you want to contribute anonymously or pseudonymously the best way
is to contact us publicly (for instance on our mailing list, using a
mail and name that you use only for that) so we could look into it and
try to find ways that work for GNU Boot but also potentially for other
upstream projects as well and this way enable you to contribute to a
wide variety of projects under free licenses with way less friction.
Legally speaking, all copyright is automatic under the Berne Convention of
international copyright law. It does not matter which name, or indeed whether
you even declare a copyright (but we do require that certain copyright
licenses are used - read more about that on this same page).
Note that for patches, the contributions that you make are publicly
recorded, in a Git repository which everyone can access.
If you use a different name and email address on your commits/patches,
then you should be fairly anonymous. Use [git log git
And these contributions include a name, an email address and even a
precise date in which the contribution was made. It is relatively easy
to change the name and email with the ones you want as the git commit
command has options for that.
If you do that, before sending patches make sure to use [git log git
\-\-pretty=fuller](https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Basics-Viewing-the-Commit-History)
and [git show \-\-pretty=fuller](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-show) to
confirm that before you push changes to a public Git repository.
confirm that you used the right name and email before publishing your
changes.
Note that even if you do that, it might still be possible to link your
contributions to your identity for instance with
[stylometry](https://media.ccc.de/v/28c3-4781-en-deceiving_authorship_detection),
by looking at network connections if you don't use
[Tor](torproject.org), by looking at the time/timezone of the
contribution, etc.
Licenses
--------