> Yes, it does:
>
-> joey@kodama:~/tmp/foo/bar>git commit --author "foo"
-> fatal: malformed --author parameter
+> joey@kodama:~/tmp/foo/bar>git commit --author "foo"
+> fatal: malformed --author parameter
>
> It seems to be happy with anything of the form "foo <foo>" -- doesn't seem to
> do any kind of strict checking. Even "http://joey.kitenet.net <>" will be
>>Sounds good to me,
>>
>> --[[harningt]]
+
+> I think the thing to do is, as Josh suggested originally, use
+> GIT_AUTHOR_NAME and GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL. Note that setting these
+> individually is best, so git can independently validate/sanitize both
+> (which it does do somewhat). Always put the username/openid/IP in
+> GIT_AUTHOR_NAME; if the user has configured an email address,
+> GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL can also be set.
+>
+> There is one thing yet to be solved, and that is how to tell the
+> difference between a web commit by 'Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>',
+> and a git commit by the same. I think we do want to differentiate these,
+> and the best way to do it seems to be to add a line to the end of the
+> commit message. Something like: "\n\nWeb-commit: true"
+>
+> For backwards compatability, the code that parses the current stuff needs
+> to be left in. But it will need to take care to only parse that if the
+> commit isn't flagged as a web commit! Else web committers could forge
+> commits from others. --[[Joey]]
+>
+> BTW, I decided not to use the user's email address in the commit, because
+> then the email becomes part of project history, and you don't really
+> expect that to happen when you give your email address on signup to a web
+> site.
+>
+> The problem with leaving the email empty is that it confuses some things
+> that try to parse it, including:
+> * cia (wants a username in there):
+> * git pull --rebase (?)
+> * github pushes to twitter ;-)
+>
+> So while I tried that way at first, I'm now leaning toward encoding the
+> username in the email address. Like "user <user@web>", or
+> "joey <http://joey.kitenet.net/@web>".