Wow the comments there are on par with 4chan.
Linus Torvalds did not commit this
101–110 of 198 posts
Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this
#102Isn't github just a mirror? I doubt serious kernel development happens there. tl;dr who cares?
It isn't just about Linux. You can masquerade as anyone on any public project and cause confusion.
Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this
#103I don't like github's dependency on some git EMAIL variables and stuff.
First of all already of course there is the problem that putting your email on the internet is asking for spam.
But a bigger problem is, if I'm on a machine that doesn't happen to have those variables configered, and I push something to github, even if I use my github username and password then, it does not show me as author. Very annoying.
EDIT: I don't like git itself's email dependency either. But at least github could have done something with the fact that you login with a username... :)
Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a Git issue. In any Git repo, you can spoof anybody's name or email. All Github did here is show his Github account instead of e-mail. That doesn't really make it worse.
It being a "Git issue" implies it should be fixed by modifying the Git software. I'm not entirely sure how someone would go about doing that, assuming you can't assume that each machine generating contributions will only be used by a single contributor and never shared. (Tokens such as thumb drives can be stolen and copied, too, and an application can't be sure it's reading off a thumb drive anyway.)
By appending "unverified" and "unsigned" after the email addresses? Just like email. This problem has been solved long ago, there is no reason why Git can't fix this. It already has PGP signatures, there is no reason to not add verification layer.
Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this
#105This is more of a problem with GitHub than git. Remember, it's not that hard to host your own git repo. There's no need to use GitHub.
This has nothing to do with GitHub. The commit author field in Git is like the “From” field of an email; you can put whatever you want in it.
Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this
#106I don't get it, I never really looked at github comments before. Why are these comments so low-quality? Aren't developers who commit to github the only readership?
I had a relatively sane comment (IMO) about whether github should instead consider allowing users to opt-in to "show unsigned commits which claim to be from this address as unknown." Oddly enough my comment itself was altered to be a mindless obnoxious comment! (does github use git commits to track the comments themselves?)
Repository authors can edit anyone’s comment.
Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why wouldn't you proctor exams? The time spent is small, less than 10 hours a semester, and the proctors can answer student questions or make corrections and clarifications to test questions. That it's a small disincentive to cheat is nice too, though in my experience only the most blatant of cheating would be caught. I say all this as someone who proctors exams.
The reason was to emphasize that the students were trusted. Sometimes a professor would sit outside in the hall to answer questions, but he would not go in the room. Most of the exams were take-home anyway, and included instructions giving a time limit and what reference material was allowed to be used.
To me this sounds like admin trying to save money. I found some more discussion in a couple places:
http://blog.sethroberts.net/2014/02/17/cheating-at-caltech/
https://www.quora.com/Are-all-exams-at-Caltech-take-home-exa...
Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this
#108I don't like github's dependency on some git EMAIL variables and stuff. First of all already of course there is the problem that putting your email on the internet is asking for spam. But a bigger problem is, if I'm on a machine that doesn't happen to have those variables configered, and I push something to github, even if I use my github username and password then, it does not show me as author. Very annoying. EDIT:…
That’s because GitHub is just some nice sugar on top of Git. Git needs your email, so does GitHub.
Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this
#109Linus actually commented on this lack of identity handling in 2012 in his famous explanation of why he doesn't use GitHub: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pull/17 "since github identities are random, I expect the pull request to be a signed tag, so that I can verify the identity of the person in question." And: "github throws away all the relevant information, like having even a valid email address for the person a…
Yeah, the GPG signing support in Git would be the best solution to this, unfortunately GitHub doesn't offer integration for that.
Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment basically reads, "I cheated and got away with it, and I'm proud of it too. I'm so awesome! Take that, stupid professor!"
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Finding the exploit and taking advantage of it are different.
"I discovered that if you rip the tags out of a library book, you can just walk out with it and the alarm won't go off!"
For some people, that would be a significant "a-ha!" moment. That doesn't mean they should go around stealing library books.