On 13 August 2013 15:38, Adrian Colomitchi
Now, my question: what an email address has to do with the identity of the owner? By the same measure, what the "full person name" or any other "govt/authority emitted ID" have to do with the identity of the owner?
I have the same problem. I don't think the govt/authority emitted ID means
anything really. Different people can share the same name, so it doesn't
uniquely identify the person. Furthermore I think I can change my legal
name and have it be the same as some other person.
The good thing about email addresses is generally they are not shared and
they are not reused. So it becomes a good way of identifying people.
e.g. this is what git uses to identify authors.
Of course, this isn't perfect. "Not reused" is not guaranteed. I use to
make work related git commits using my work email address, however if I
left my current job they are free to reuse my email address (they say they
won't and it is unlikely to be an actual issue). So all my git commits
would now belong to somebody else. I can't change these either, without
rewriting the entire git history for these projects. So now I use my
personal email address which I know will last.
Both names and email addresses can change. Which is a problem, however this
doesn't necessarily invalidate the old id.
--
Brian May