Howdy, Hmm. I understand the reasoning in this thread and the referenced posts for removing the @author tags, but I still am not a big fan of the idea. The reason is that for a new contributor, as you say, it's a big thrill to have your name in a widely distributed source code file.
We want to attract these new contributors, and this is a nice perk. Yes, it's in the changelog, but that's not as easy to find for all projects. I suppose we could put every contributor's name on a web page somewhere, but that's at least as much of a pain to maintain, because now you have at least two people involved: the contributor and the committer who has to edit the web page listing the contributors. I too have gotten personal emails regarding code I wrote in the past, and I don't mind them that much. I just tell people to email the appropriate mailing list. I recognize that the legal argument against having @author tags may trump all others, and if that's the case so be it. But I think we're taking away something very important: an attracting factor for new contributors, the ego factor that drives many open-source developers. So -0 from me on this proposal, and apologies for this rambling post, I'm mostly thinking by typing on this slow day. Happy holidays to all ;) Yoav Shapira Millennium ChemInformatics >-----Original Message----- >From: Simon Kitching [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2003 11:18 PM >To: Jakarta Commons Developers List >Subject: Re: [all] Author tags redux > >On Mon, 2003-12-29 at 16:39, Phil Steitz wrote: >> The subject of @author tags has been discussed on and off here and >> elsewhere with no apparent consensus. In a recent post to general@, Ted >> Husted pointed to this post >> >> <http://tinyurl.com/yrlhu> >> >> by Greg Stein to community at apache.org, which raises some disturbing >> legal and community issues around the use of @author tags. I am convinced >> by his arguments that we should eliminate @author tags uniformly once we >> clean up the web site and get the process of updating and publishing >> contributor lists routinized (read: complete the mavenization of the j-c >> web site). > >I'm +1 to removing author tags in general too. > >As an occasional contributor it is a rush to see your name in an author >tag :-). But it also feels a bit excessive for small patches. And once >you start submitting significant patches, everyone knows who you are >anyway. If there is a website that contributors can point to and say >"look, that's me" (eg for CVs) then I agree that author tags are not >necessary. And the less clutter in the source files the better. Some >system where the maven site had a list of contributors ordered by # of >patches committed would be ideal though I can't immediately see how to >implement that. > >I have also had people contact me directly when the message would have >better been directed at the dev or user list; I presume the more >prolific contributors would get this even worse. Removing author tags >may help here. > >I do think that this issue should be reposted sometime after the 5th, >when many more people would be back as opinions may vary. Of course for >[collections], the main contributors seem to be working right now... > > >--------------------------------------------------------------------- >To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This e-mail, including any attachments, is a confidential business communication, and may contain information that is confidential, proprietary and/or privileged. This e-mail is intended only for the individual(s) to whom it is addressed, and may not be saved, copied, printed, disclosed or used by anyone else. If you are not the(an) intended recipient, please immediately delete this e-mail from your computer system and notify the sender. Thank you. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
