> > Exactly. And even for the case where the change/commit came > from somebody > > else, that will (should) be noted in the log message. You > can always find > > out who wrote any particular change. > > CVS change/commit logs don't go into the javadoc, which is > often the major > way in which a user looks at the code.
You can add CVS commit comments in the code (in a comment, or even in the javadocs, although it's rather unusual) by using the tag $Log$, which will be completed by CVS when a file is commited. > > > > Also, I think author tags are a way that code gets 'assigned' to > > > someone, and I would like to avoid the problem of code > ownership that I > > > have seen in other open source project I have worked on. > Although, I > > > think the Apache system is designed to reduce the impact of such > > > problems, I think not having author tags will help. > > Code ownership is bad. But only in terms of the old corporate > concept that > only Mr X can change a piece of code. Code responsibility is important > however. I've found that when you throw away code ownership, > you often end > up with no one caring. > > Code responsibility means that even though anyone may leap in > and hack on > a piece, the long term future of a piece of code is the > responsibility of > known people. Effectively code-ownership [bad] is implementation while > code responsibility [good] is design. Author tags signify code > responsibility. eXtrem programming (is it applicable to an open-source project?) mentions that code responsibility should shared between all developpers. In other words, anyone can modify a class, if he/she has good reasons to do so. With a responsible clearly assigned, what would happen if he/she leaves the team? Cheers, Tom
