I've never been comfortable with constructing or editing commit
messages that will appear under someone else's name, but on the other
hand I don't want to be forced either to use someone else's message
untouched or to remove their name from the "Author" field. Allowing
myself to make clearly-marked edits seems to be a good compromise, and
square brackets are a common way of marking edits and editorial
comments.
Bedstead has actually had external contributions, so it seems reasonably
to set out how I handle them.
This was inspired by Valerie Aurora and by the contributions and credits
policy guide created by members of the RIPE Open Source Working Group.