remove username from repo

[ghost]

I want to have my name, e-mail address and username, removed from the repo.

affected files

.mailmap
AUTHORS
Porting/checkAUTHORS.pl

Would a PR removing the relevant lines suffice, or if any of the above files are auto generated, and would be recreated, are there special instructions to remove the relevant lines?

If special instructions are indicated please provide these.

[Leont]

Given two of those are generated from git history, it's currently not possibly. But I guess it could be made possible (by using a hash of some sort to filter you out).

@demerphq ideas?

[ghost]

I neglected to mention the file pod/perl5340delta.pod.

[ghost]

Presently there are no commits to the repo, consequently no git history, associated with this username.

https://github.com/Perl/perl5/commits?author=

Perhaps a Contributor would oblige and remove these lines, which would not result in a git history associated with this username.

[rwp0]

@apparluk Sorry, but why would you like to remove your name from the authors?

[Leont]

Perhaps a Contributor would oblige and remove these lines, which would not result in a git history associated with this username.

Like I said before, .mailmap and AUTHORS are generated files, so there's no point to manually removing them: they'd be added back on regeneration.

Porting/checkAUTHORS.pl is the source of the link between the two addresses, I'm not sure we can remove that without things breaking. I suspect we need to block your email first if we don't want to break tests.

The perl5340delta entry can be fixed easily enough though.

[ghost]

Update nmake for VS 2017
committed on Jun 14, 2017

I don't think there's any code I wrote in the repo since then.

[Leont]

b998bd1

[ghost]

If removal of the content it is too much trouble, I could just use a different GitHub account and e-mail address.

I presume in the foregoing that a merged commit - using a different GitHub account and e-mail address - would overwrite the current information in .mailmap, AUTHORS and Porting/checkAUTHORS.pl.

[Leont]

If removal of the content it is too much trouble, I could just use a different GitHub account and e-mail address.

I'm sure it can be done, but it requires code and someone will need to write that first.

I presume in the foregoing that a merged commit - using a different GitHub account and e-mail address - would overwrite the current information in .mailmap, AUTHORS and Porting/checkAUTHORS.pl.

I'm not sure what you mean with that. What would a merged commit have to do with it? And no information would be overwritten in .mailmap, it only gets information added (AUTHORS we can redirect using Porting/checkAUTHORS.pl).

[ghost]

not sure what you mean

my misunderstanding

Where a Committer has used more than one e-mail address multi-line Committers' entries appear in Porting/checkAUTHORS.pl, and, like you indicated before git history plays a role in generation of two repository files, so, using a different GitHub account and e-mail address wouldn't result in overwriting .mailmap and the old content would remain in Porting/checkAUTHORS.pl.

[demerphq]

On Sun, 31 Jul 2022, 21:28 apparluk, ***@***.***> wrote: not sure what you mean my misunderstanding Where a Committer has used more than one e-mail address multi-line Committers' entries appear in Porting/checkAUTHORS.pl, and, like you indicated before git history plays a role in generation of two repository files, so, using a different GitHub account and e-mail address wouldn't result in overwriting .mailmap and the old content would remain in Porting/checkAUTHORS.pl

Forget checkAUTHORS. It is not your problem to solve. The fundamental problem is you created a patch which added yourself to AUTHORS and added a github user id to the list of committers. We can arrange to remove the AUTHORS entry, and we can set up .mailmap to cause your details to be hidden on github and in casual use of git tooling, however doing so means the github email will remain in .mailmap. Or we can remove you entirely from the files you stated but then your email will be visible in git log and on github. Doing the former will take me a few minutes doing the latter will be more effort. I am fine with either. Just let me know. The only way we can remove all trace is to rewrite the repo, if you want that it needs to handled by the PSC, and personally I'd recommend reading up on the Streisand effect before you ask for that. It might produce exact opposite of the desired effect. As long as you want one of the two options I can execute myself just say which. Thanks. Yves

[ghost]

The GitHub account used at the time of the relevant commit was subsequently deleted. For a reason separate to this repository it was recreated, so {id} for the deleted and recreated GitHub accounts are not the same, whereas {user_name} for the former and current accounts are the same.

{id}+{user_name}@users.noreply.github.com

Both AUTHORS and .mailmap appear to be indexed by search engines.

I inform that as removing both the github email {id}+{user_name}@users.noreply.github.com entirely from the repositories' files and my name from perl5340delta can be arranged I would choose that option.

fundamental problem

Leaving my name and email in AUTHORS would be acceptable, in the context of the foregoing.

[demerphq]

On Fri, 5 Aug 2022 at 01:25, fluesvamp ***@***.***> wrote: The following is posted if other Committers/Mere mortals have privacy concerns. The content of checkAUTHORS doesn't appear to be indexed by search engines. Based on this I presume that top-level repository files are indexed by search engines. Perhaps the current AUTHORS and .mailmap location is not the best owing to privacy concerns.

The repo is public. The change log history is public. The email list is public. All of them are indexed by search engines. AUTHORS is and has been part of the distribution forever and being in it is a point of pride for many more developers than those who wish to be excluded. The fact is that if someone is email harvesting then they are going to find these email addresses. I get it that some folks get twitchy when they do a search and find their email in various places, but that is life contributing to a public open source project. Its meant to be open. Privacy about who changed what is the antithesis of open. .mailmap is a file defined by the git project, we cant do email name mapping and hiding without it. git and github use it. We use it because they do. If you have concerns about that, then I think you need to take them to the git project. (I might raise it myself.) I think it is a reasonable thing to say "I want a way to have an encrypted or hashed version of the logic that .mailmap provides" and then maybe in a few years that will filter out to the infra we use. But its really not very reasonable to say 'use a different file', as that would defeat the purpose of having it at all. Having said that we are putting all contributors in the .mailmap file even if they arent being being used for blocking because it makes the coding easier in many ways, however I can probably remove most need for it. But ultimately if we remove you from the .mailmap file you will APPEAR in github. We can't hide you in github without populating the mailmap file, which itself will then be visible in github. AUTHORS we have some control over, and we can remove people from it should they request to be removed, and doing so will also remove them from github views of the change logs and whatnot as well. But to do that currently we update the .mailmap file. Anyway, I have heard this thread and for historical I am well placed to address some of the concerns raised here and ill do my best. But the reality is that some of this is imposed by the infra and tooling we us and until they change we are stuck. cheers, Yves

…

-- perl -Mre=debug -e "/just|another|perl|hacker/"

[demerphq]

Just wanted to post an update that I am working on this as time permits, my changes are nearly done, and a PR will be forthcoming this week.

[demerphq]

Hi all, I have pushed #20070 to remove this users details, and restructure and unify our AUTHORS related logic into one place (updateAUTHORS.pl) and add the ability to exclude people in a somewhat PII friendly way (hashed details). I expect to make some further patches to updateAUTHORS.pm once it gets merged or as part of the review process depending on my time availability.

[karenetheridge]

I would fulfill this user's request by adding a .mailmap entry for the user's name+email to "Anonymous" (or whatever other placeholder is deemed suitable). That will prevent the name from being published in perl releases (release announcements, other pod files etc).

Removing the name from the repository entirely is not possible because we do not change the history of git commits - once a commit is made it is permanent.

[demerphq]

This is resolved now. Thank you for your patience while we got it merged.

[demerphq]

On Sat, 30 Jul 2022 at 02:01, apparluk ***@***.***> wrote: IIRC the following line in win32/{GNUmakefile,Makefile} was added via patches I submitted. # VS 2017 (VC++ 14.1) requires at minimum Windows 7 SP1 (with latest Windows Updates) That was prior to development transitioning to GitHub, and I don't think there's any code I wrote in the repo since that transition.

I find a reference to you in our commits. b998bd1 Where you yourself added your name and data to AUTHORS. We later added the github email automatically as part of cleanup. cheers, Yves

…

-- perl -Mre=debug -e "/just|another|perl|hacker/"

[demerphq]

On Fri, 29 Jul 2022 at 22:10, Leon Timmermans ***@***.***> wrote: Perhaps a Contributor would oblige and remove these lines, which would not result in a git history associated with this username. Like I said before, .mailmap and AUTHORS are generated files, so there's no point to manually removing them: they'd be added back on regeneration. Porting/checkAUTHORS.pl is the source of the link between the two, I'm not sure we can remove that without things breaking. I suspect we need to block your email first if we don't want to break tests.

FWIW IMO checkAUTHORS needs to go anyway. It should be replaced by running updateAUTHORS and seeing if any changes are made. The only reason I did do it earlier is checkAUTHORS does more than just checkAUTHORS and I wanted updateAUTHORS to bake a while before we did the next step. Yves

…

-- perl -Mre=debug -e "/just|another|perl|hacker/"

[demerphq]

On Sat, 20 Aug 2022 at 20:23, Karen Etheridge ***@***.***> wrote: I would fulfill this user's request by adding a .mailmap entry for the user's name+email to "Anonymous" (or whatever other placeholder is deemed suitable). That will prevent the name from being published in perl releases (release announcements, other pod files etc).

They asked not to be listed in our files at all. They dont care if their name shows up in the changelog. They know that email harvesters are aware of git .mailmap files and index and collect them. Their objective is to not have their email or name listed in the project files at all, they know that rewriting the history is not a realistic option. cheers, Yves

…

-- perl -Mre=debug -e "/just|another|perl|hacker/"