THE PRACTICAL ASPECT OF THIS DISCUSSION IS AT BEST DUBIOUS
The use of @author tags has a lot more than ownership or braggadocio to recommend itself to us. When we see certain authors, then we know that we don't have to double check the code too much. We might even stop for that reason alone to see what they do. Other authors, maybe we do the opposite. This is not unimportant.
We can also see where people are interested in or good at various aspects of coding. There are lots of reasons to know who did what and when as well as for what reason. There is no reason that has been given that I find at all persuasive to not know who coded something. The deliberate creation of ignorance about these matters should be suspicious to our common sense.
THE LEGAL ASPECT IN THIS DISCUSSION IS JUST PLAIN MISTAKEN
Roland Weber wrote:
>Right now, there is a company with three capital letters on >the loose, which is suing other companies (including another >one with three capital letters) for reasons that most of the >open source community considers to be silly. But it may be >an expensive and lengthy enterprise to prove in court that >a silly thing is a silly thing. If removing author tags may >reduce the risk of being sued, then rip them out.
1. There is no legal liability engendered by the @author tags. If there is, please indicate how so. Wild speculations about other suits is not helpful.
2. Any alternative to @author tags will face exactly the same legal liability.
With respect to everyone involved in this decision to break something that is not broken, this is all really not very smart. Some of the best programmers in the world are on these lists. Unfortunately, some of the worst "jail house" lawyers are also on this list. The list needs to know that this is all legal baloney.
There is NOTHING fixed or protected legally by doing something with the @author tags. Anyone who thinks so is simply way off beam.
All this talk about legal liability is nothing but well-intentioned smoke and mirrors. There is NO REALITY to the legal aspect of this discussion.
Please get a real decision on this by someone that knows what they are talking about in the legal arena or stop this wild speculating about legal matters.
No one who is attributed through @author tags is legally liable for anything they should not be legally liable for and any workable alternative won't change the legal liability a bit.
Please, if you are advocating a change for legal reasons, understand that you are just wrong, that you don't know what you are talking about in this case. This is really not even debatable. Okay? PLEASE identify a real problem rather than speculating about the legal arena generally. That is emotionally appealing but not helpful, in my opinion, even if well-intentioned. The bugaboo of having to hide reality because people can sue for any silly reason is great copy for "inquiring minds" that read newspaper rags, but it is, again, a silly way to behave in a responsible arena. This is almost identical to an argument that we should not use plumbing but should build outhouses because sewer pipes sometimes break. Don't screw the area of open source coding up over wild and inaccurate speculation about legal liability. If you want to harm the open source community, in my opinion, this is a good start.
