Sounds like an (overt) attempt at getting all their contributions to come from a `@linux.ibm.com` account, which might make sense depending on what their arrangement with IBM is?

For example if IBM were paying them a full-time salary to maintain VNIC as a representative of IBM then it makes sense for IBM to ask for what they're paying for, or at least to not let them add "personal" contributions to the mix?

Source for my conjecture is:

> Lijun Pan <ljp@linux.ibm.com>

And:

> Lijun Pan <lijunp213@gmail.com>

So they want them to use the IBM email association all of the time