Re: [Monotone-devel] Re: Future of monotone

[Derek Scherger]

Thomas Keller wrote:
> Does it really make sense to have an author field for anything beside a 
> commit cert? If you tag or test something, you do not become the author 
> of anything, you just mark something somehow. When I look at the 
> proposed database table schemes so far I somehow have the impression 
> that we rather have a hard time of applying the same metadata which fit 
> perfectly for non-commit certs on commit certificates - i.e. tag, 
> branch, suspend and testresult perfectly fit into the 
> (name,value,comment?,date,signer,signature) tuple scheme, just commit 
> certs do not because they can optionally have an author which is 
> different from the signer.

One reason for separating out the author from the signer is that, in the 
event of a database rebuild, all certs will be re-signed by whoever does 
the rebuild and the original author is lost. This has happened a few 
times in the monotone history and while not a huge problem does leave 
rebuild a little more lossy than it could be.

Cheers,
Derek