Christian Grobmeier wrote:
However, I am afraid before that bureaucracy in sourcecode. It never came to my mind that one could feel that it is "unfair" that his lines of code are exactly noted. Furthermore, if one contributes 3 lines of code an a comment makes clear who did that, what is if one has to make a fix in the 3 lines? Isn't it unfair too that his fix probably would not get the same attention? Or if the fix gets the same attention as the original? I would prefer not to think about fairness in sourcecode comments. I would prefer to be fair in a team.xml or NOTICE or Changes.xml file as already suggested.
The procedure for maintaining author tags is fairly simple. 1) never remove existing author tags corollary) keep existing tags as they are 2) add new author tags as necessary Any contribution of 10 lines or more is qualified. When in doubt, add the author tag in question I've been doing this for years. Very little work is involved.
I also think that @author-tags are bad for team-building. Reading "who is responsible for a class" makes me afraid if I want to propose changes. I think it's a bit different at apache (cause people are cool), but I never would use author tags in a commercial projects for this.
That's a common Apache myth. Author tags their addition or removal have less to do with team building than with rewarding contributions via recognition. Many commercial companies dislike author tags because the developers individuality casts a shadow over the employer. Hey, we are paying developer John Doe for his work, there is no need for recognition... Apache is not a company and none of the developers get paid for their contributions. Giving credit to authors is the least Apache can do.
However, after this dicussion I decided to search the mailinglists. there was already atempt to remove the author tags: http://www.mailinglistarchive.com/[email protected]/msg00068.html I think this lead to the issue. I will try to find out the e-mail adresses of the original authors and will ask them if they are fine with moving their names to changes.xml or wherever. If all agree, no problem, if none agrees we have to discuss more.
There is no legal obligation to do this. As your intentions are good, allow me to say that you are painting yourself into a corner. Asking for unanimous agreement is too much work. And there will always be the nagging suspicion that you forgot someone. By the way, is this issue blocking other contribution you might make?
Maybe there are others jumping into discussion Cheers! Christian
-- Ceki Gülcü Logback: The reliable, generic, fast and flexible logging framework for Java. http://logback.qos.ch
