[PATCH] Documentation: Rename Samba's DCO to Samba Contributor Representation

[Jeremy Allison]

On Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 03:14:13PM -0400, Simo Sorce via samba-technical wrote:
> [Resending as originally sent from wrong address and bounced]
> On Thu, 2020-10-15 at 19:14 +0100, Rowland penny via samba-technical
> wrote:
> > Hang on, what is wrong with calling it a 'DCO' ?
> 
> The original license for DCO 1.0 did not permit it, this[1] is the only
> reference I can still find.
> 
>       If you modify you must use a name or title distinguishable from
>       "Developer's Certificate of Origin" or "DCO" or any confusingly
>       similar name. 
> 
> 
> The current DCO (1.1), in contrast, does not permit modifications at
> all.
> 
> > With 'DCO' (Developer's Certificate of Origin), even I (a total
> > thicko) can understand what it means,
> 
> Maybe you really do, but to me it never meant anything until explained
> anyway. The first time I saw the name I wondered why they want to know
> where *I* am from.
> 
> >  I have no idea what 'Contributor Representation' means.
> 
> That's why you read the text and figure it out, it is just a name and
> is as good as the original in terms of clarity IMO.

Well it's not just Samba that uses DCO. Look here:

https://probot.github.io/apps/dco/
https://www.dita-ot.org/dco
http://www.gearvrf.org/about/certificate/
https://www.docker.com/blog/docker-code-contributions-require-developer-certificate-of-origin/

for just a few of the other projects that use "DCO"
to do exactly what we do.

Right now it looks like the term "DCO" has become
synonymous with what we're doing here.

Even Linux kernel developers use it in this way:

https://blog.hansenpartnership.com/a-modest-proposal-on-the-dco/

"When one of our developers posts a patch to a project under
an OSI approved licence with a DCO Signed-off-by: from our
corporate email domain, we authorise that developer to be our
agent in the minimum set of patent and copyright grants that
are required to satisfy the terms of the OSI approved licence
for the contribution."

Note that the above text doesn't say "to the Linux kernel
project" here - only "to a project".