[darcs-devel] [darcs #322]

via RT bugs at darcs.net
Wed Apr 6 14:42:37 PDT 2005


Wed Apr 06 17:42:34 2005: New ticket: 322.
Transaction: Ticket created by guest
       Queue: Darcs
     Subject: (No subject given)
       Owner: Nobody
  Requestors: robert.medeiros at utoronto.ca
      Status: new
 Ticket <URL: http://bugs.darcs.net/.//Ticket/Display.html?id=322 >

I'd like to be able to send patches through an anonymous remailer
network like mixmaster, or its upcoming successor mixminion
(http://www.mixminion.net/). A flag for 'darcs send' would be really
convenient for this purpose.

With all the (deserved) focus in various SCM systems on signing of
patches to provide verification and accountability, it seems no one is
considering the inverse problems in the same context. For the same
reasons I don't browse a patent portfolio before implementing a piece of
software (double damages if you're found to infringe!), it might be nice
to be able to provably disclaim any knowledge of the source of the
patches I've included in my repo. People wanting to contribute to an
open source competitor to their company's products (assuming for the
nonce that no improprieties are being committed), or in many other
scenarios one could imagine, might find this  very useful.

Especially useful would be the option to send patches anonymously, but
later prove that one authored a patch, say if someone wanted to change
the license of a project and needed permission of the contributors, or
someone was found to be in contravention of a license and you needed to
prove your interest in the software in court... Anyways, IANAL, but it
seems to me that with a legal environment that seems to be encroaching
further every day on our rights to write code, adopting something of a
cypherpunk mentality early on might be a good idea. YMMV.

Thanks for darcs, I use it for all my personal projects.




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