[PATCH] Documentation/process: add Co-Developed-by: tag for patches with multiple authors

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman
Date: Thu Nov 16 2017 - 08:23:14 EST


Sometimes a single patch is the result of multiple authors. As git only
can have one "author" of a patch, it is still good to properly give
credit to the other developers of a commit. To address this, document
the "Co-Developed-by:" tag which can be used to show other authors of
the patch.

Note, these other authors must also provide a Signed-off-by: tag as it
is their work that is being submitted here.

Reported-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>


diff --git a/Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst b/Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst
index 1b7728b19ea7..645fa9c7388a 100644
--- a/Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/5.Posting.rst
@@ -213,6 +213,11 @@ The tags in common use are:
which can be found in Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst. Code without a
proper signoff cannot be merged into the mainline.

+ - Co-Developed-by: states that the patch was also created by another developer
+ along with the original author. This is useful at times when multiple
+ people work on a single patch. Note, this person also needs to have a
+ Signed-off-by: line in the patch as well.
+
- Acked-by: indicates an agreement by another developer (often a
maintainer of the relevant code) that the patch is appropriate for
inclusion into the kernel.