[
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/TAVERNA-897?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=15949713#comment-15949713
]
Stuart Owen commented on TAVERNA-897:
-------------------------------------
To clarify, I wasn't suggesting that @author tags had been changed, or commits
maliciously changed or manipulated.
However, for the period that Taverna was heavily funded, was very active and a
lot of the development was done, the entire history and attribution has been
wiped out. This happened previous to and during the hand-over to Apache, due to
'corruption' and resetting of the version control history as Stian describes in
the bug description.
Its a bit sad to have 6 or more years of your work wiped out, but mostly caused
me concern during a recent period I thought I may be looking for a new job.
Although undesirable, I was at least reassured by the fact the @author tags
provided some evidence of my work if it was questioned.
I agree that @author tags incorrectly suggests ownership, and are generally
terrible. @contributed_by may be an alternative. Contributor blocks in the
README may be another way that is often used. Perhaps there are some guidelines
on this.
> Remove @author tags?
> --------------------
>
> Key: TAVERNA-897
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/TAVERNA-897
> Project: Apache Taverna
> Issue Type: Bug
> Reporter: Stian Soiland-Reyes
> Assignee: Stian Soiland-Reyes
>
> Some of our Javadoc contain @author tags - which are reflected in the HTML of
> the JAvadoc - for instance
> http://taverna.incubator.apache.org/javadoc/taverna-language/org/apache/taverna/scufl2/api/package-summary.html
> http://taverna.incubator.apache.org/javadoc/taverna-osgi/org/apache/taverna/configuration/ConfigurationManager.html
> Apache NiFi's argument against Javadoc @author tags:
> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-nifi-dev/201505.mbox/%3CCAGHyZ6LcrZ1aPMUjJ%3DrJkkK19Cmveew7PmTUKuWprK_bz3jxmg%40mail.gmail.com%3E
> – which I find myself agreeing with.
> Older discussion also says Apache projects should stay away from @author tags:
> https://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-community/200306.mbox/%[email protected]%3E
> A simple argument is that under ASF all of the Taverna committers are equally
> responsible or attributable for all the code base - even if a particular
> person made a class to start with.
> Maintenance of @author tag is error-prone (how big a change before you add
> yourself? What about thousands of files with no @author?)
> Also there's the question of what is the purpose of the @author tag beyond
> attribution (it shows up in the HTML representation), when any questions
> about a class should be taken to dev@taverna - not to that person.
> The git log should provide attribution about who made a file, but sadly after
> various folder/repository moves and version control system changes this is a
> bit tricky (you need to use {{git log --follow}} and hope for the best). So
> there is an counter-argument for keeping the @author tags - specially as
> coming up in TAVERNA-894 lots of the classes of taverna-osgi and
> taverna-engine were initially written by David Withers and Tom Oinn, and
> neither joined the Apache Taverna project.
> What are your views?
--
This message was sent by Atlassian JIRA
(v6.3.15#6346)
