[TUHS] Claim your early Unix contributions on GitHub

Diomidis Spinellis dds at aueb.gr
Wed Mar 30 17:53:58 AEST 2016


The Unix History repository on GitHub [1] aims to provide the evolution 
of Unix from the 1970s until today under Git revision control.  Through 
a few changes recently made [2] it's now possible for individual 
contributors to have their GitHub profile linked to their early Unix 
contributions.  Ken Thompson graciously made this move last week 
following a personal email invitation.  I think it would be really cool 
if more followed.  This would send a powerful message of continuity and 
tradition in computing to youngsters joining GitHub today.

What you need to do is the following.

- Create a GitHub profile (if you haven't already got one)
- Click on https://github.com/settings/emails
- Add the email address(es) associated with your early Unix commits 
(e.g. foo at research.uucp or bar at ucbvax.berkeley.edu). You can easily find 
an author's commits and email addresses recorded in the repository 
through the web search form http://www.spinellis.gr/cgi-bin/namegrep.pl
- GitHub will tell you that a verification email has been sent to your 
(probably defunct) email address.  Don't worry.  Your account will be 
linked to the address even without the verification step.
- Adding your photograph to your profile will increase the vividness of 
GitHub's revision listings.

If you're in contact with Unix contributors who are not on this list, 
please forward them this message.  Also, if your name isn't properly 
associated with the repository's commits, drop me an email message (or a 
GitHub pull request for the corresponding file [3]), and I'll add it.

[1] https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo
[2] The modifications involved the change of UUCP addresses to use the 
.uucp pseudo-domain rather than a ! path and the listing of co-authors 
within the commit message.
[3] 
https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-make/tree/master/src/author-path

Diomidis - http://www.spinellis.gr



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