IBM uses the "signed off by" feature to enforce/track code reviews before any code gets contributed to ANL. The intent is that the commit author != the commit signer when the code goes out. Often a developer at ANL will also review the code before it gets integrated into the master branch (IBM developers don't have push authority) and sign the commit again.

We use the text "Signed-off-by:xxxx <yyy@zzz>" simply because this is what is supported by the git tools. You can use commands like `git cherry-pick -s`, `git commit --amend -s`, and `git am -s` to ease the signing effort.

Michael Blocksome
Parallel Environment MPI Middleware Team Lead, TCEM
POWER, x86, and Blue Gene HPC Messaging
blocksom@us.ibm.com




From:        Pavan Balaji <balaji@mcs.anl.gov>
To:        discuss@mpich.org,
Date:        01/04/2014 10:00 PM
Subject:        Re: [mpich-discuss] Use of Signed-off-by in MPICH
Sent by:        discuss-bounces@mpich.org

---

Please use devel@mpich.org for developer oriented discussion.

We use signoff as a way to get a second confirmation on the correctness of the patch.  In some cases, multiple confirmations.  There’s also a "silent signoff” done by the jenkins testing before things are merged into mpich/master.

 — Pavan

On Jan 4, 2014, at 7:55 PM, Jed Brown <jedbrown@mcs.anl.gov> wrote:

> I'm confused by the current use of Signed-off-by tags in MPICH.  Is this
> intended to be a developer's certificate of origin (DCO) following the
> model of the Linux kernel [1]?  I can't tell if IBM is using it that
> way, where Michael Blocksome is the one authorized by IBM to assert on
> IBM's behalf that the work has clean IP and may be distributed under the
> MPICH license.  But what does this mean?
>
> commit 87b20136ac20a0fbcffd8e29edcc500fcebbfc22
> Author:     Pavan Balaji <balaji@mcs.anl.gov>
> AuthorDate: Wed Jan 1 19:33:36 2014 -0600
> Commit:     Pavan Balaji <balaji@mcs.anl.gov>
> CommitDate: Thu Jan 2 15:39:07 2014 -0600
>
>    Move default eager threshold setting to ch3.
>
>    We were setting the default eager threshold inside nemesis, instead of
>    in ch3.  This was causing other ch3 channels, notably sock, to get a
>    garbage default value for the eager threshold.
>
>    Signed-off-by: Wesley Bland <wbland@mcs.anl.gov>
>
>
> If this were a DCO, we would interpret it as meaning that Wesley is the
> one certifying the IP, but Pavan is the author.
>
> Or is Signed-off-by being used where Reviewed-by would be more
> appropriate?
>
>
> [1] https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
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--
Pavan Balaji
http://www.mcs.anl.gov/~balaji

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