Re: [PATCH v3] checkpatch: add new warnings to author signoff checks.

[Dwaipayan Ray]

On Tue, Oct 6, 2020 at 1:07 AM Joe Perches <joe@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 2020-10-06 at 00:54 +0530, Dwaipayan Ray wrote:
> > The author signed-off-by checks are currently very vague.
> > Cases like same name or same address are not handled separately.
>
> When you run tests for this, how many mismatches are
> caused by name formatting changes like:
>
> From: "Developer, J. Random" <jrd@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> ...
> Signed-off-by: "J. Random Developer" <jrd@xxxxxxxxxxx>?
>
> Should these differences generate a warning?
>

Hi,
I ran my tests on non merge commits between v5.7 and v5.8.

There were a total of 250 NO_AUTHOR_SIGN_OFF Warnings

203 of these were email address mismatches.
32 of these were name mismatches.

So for the name mismatches, the typical cases are like:

'From: tannerlove <tannerlove@xxxxxxxxxx>' != 'Signed-off-by: Tanner
Love <tannerlove@xxxxxxxxxx>'
'From: "朱灿灿" <zhucancan@xxxxxxxx>' != 'Signed-off-by: zhucancan
<zhucancan@xxxxxxxx>'
'From: Yuval Basson <ybason@xxxxxxxxxxx>' != 'Signed-off-by: Yuval
Bason <ybason@xxxxxxxxxxx>'
'From: allen <allen.chen@xxxxxxxxxx>' != 'Signed-off-by: Allen Chen
<allen.chen@xxxxxxxxxx>'

I didn't find the exact formatting change you mentioned in my commit range.
But I did find something like:

'From: "Paul A. Clarke" <pc@xxxxxxxxxx>' != 'Signed-off-by: Paul
Clarke <pc@xxxxxxxxxx>'

So it's like some have parts of their names removed, some have language
conflicts, and yet some have well different spellings, or initials,
etc. It's like
a wide variety of things happening here.

I think considering these, it should be warned about, and let people know
that there might be something wrong going on.

What do you think?

Thanks,
Dwaipayan.