A lot of people whos opinions I respect have commented on this and I thank them for their time but that being said I still don't understand how a "real" name policy helps avoid problems, it isn't as if the coreboot leadership meets someone in real life and asks them to present a passport which is then verified by a handy federal officer.
I agree.
Same concerns here. I failed to see how a "Real Name" policy would help solve the following problems.
1. There's nothing preventing a developer to use a forged name.
2. Even if all developers are registered with their IDs, there is still nothing preventing developers to copy and paste GPL/BSD code and commit them into the coreboot repository, and as far as I know, a great deal of code snippets are published only with a random online handle. It is entirely possible for coreboot developer to include some code from some free sofware project, which is published pseudonymous.
To avoid these problems, reusing code under a free software license should be forbidden in coreboot, to this point, one purpose of free software is already lost. Otherwise, all developers should be required to investigate before reusing any code so only legitimate code is reused. I don't think it is practical.
3. A "Real Name" policy doesn't transfer the copyright of individual developers to the project manager. It is generally believed the FOSS projects with centralized copyright have much higher chance and confidence to prove or solve a copyright issue on the legal ground. The effectiveness of a "Real Name" without signing the CLA is limited.
Disclaimer:
1. I haven't contributed any code to coreboot but working on related project and may do it in the future.
2. The name I used for most of my projects, including this name, is a nickname and has zero legal validity.
Happy Hacking, Tom Li