On Apr 8, 2009, at 10:55 AM, David Sean Taylor wrote:
On Apr 8, 2009, at 5:36 AM, Carsten Ziegeler wrote:
Hi,
I noticed that we don't consistently use javadoc tags throughout our
code base. Some of them have author tags, others have version tags,
some
have both, and a lot of them don't have any tags at all.
For the author tag: it's a suggestion from the ASF to not use author
tags for several reasons (they get out of date/sync, they might be
abused, they imply code ownership etc.). We've seen all this happen
at
the ASF, so I suggest to simply remove them. If noone objects, I'll
do
that. (the svn history contains exact information about who changed
what)
Where does the ASF suggest removing author tags? Is it on the
website under a policy page, could you please send us a link?
Im not convinced we should be changing this policy at Pluto right
now. Yes, the tags can be abused, but I don't follow the logic in
simply abolishing things that can be abused.
AFAIK, its a per project decision. If all other projects at Apache
are doing away with author tags, then we should follow policy. I
just haven't seen other projects Im working with doing so.
I googled a bit. Around 2004 I found a bunch of emails explaining
that projects were removing author tags as a result of a board
recommendation to do so. I have a faint recollection that this might
have been associated with the apache license change. I haven't been
able to locate the recomendation. It does appear to be a project's
decision.
I don't think its important one way or the other but I personally
prefer no author tags. I've never seen them be maintained.
thanks
david jencks
