> Sure but how is git (or other tools) supposed to know this "explicit 
ownership transfer" is even happening?
It can't, so it should punt.  But if it's going to punt, empty symbol 
(or some default like "dingus") should be allowed for committing 
in flows like the one I described.
> How is it supposed to validate 
the "correct" author? How is git supposed to know that "Foo typed 
'Linus'" and not Linus or that Linus isn't correcting a commit 
erroneously attributed to Foo?
It's the commiter's responsibility to do that.  git and its wrappers 
can (well, must) trust the commiter to provide that info.  But an 
API and a UI can make that more or less explicit.  If Gitlab 
says "Committed by Foo, who attributes the code to Bar", I'm 
going to start an inquiry about smelly code with Foo.  If it says 
"Authored by Bar," one can easily draw the wrong conclusions.
-Jonathan
 
    On Thursday, May 5, 2016 2:24 PM, IOhannes m zmölnig <zmoelnig@iem.at> wrote: