Re: Process for cherry-picking patches from other projects

[Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 17 May 2022, Jan Beulich wrote:
> Hmm. The present rules written down in docs/process/sending-patches.pandoc
> are a result of me having been accused of unduly stripping S-o-b (and maybe
> a few other) tags. If that was for a real reason (and not just because of
> someone's taste), how could it ever be okay to remove S-o-b? (Personally I
> agree with what you propose, it just doesn't line up with that discussion
> we had not all that long ago.)

This is the meaning of the DCO: https://developercertificate.org

The relevant case is:

(b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best
    of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source
    license and I have the right under that license to submit that
    work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part
    by me, under the same open source license (unless I am
    permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated
    in the file; or

IANAL but I read this as to mean that only the submitter Signed-off-by
is required. Also consider that the code could come from a place where
Signed-off-by is not used. As long as the copyright checks out, then we
are OK.