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Posted to dev@harmony.apache.org by Alexei Fedotov <al...@gmail.com> on 2008/04/21 13:29:59 UTC
[general] removing people names from sources
Hello folks
I started asking people how they would feel about removing their names
from the source files. One of replies I got was that it would be nice
to keep the names in the list of contributors. Any ideas on
feasibility of the file, a suitable name (NOTICE?) and any
corresponding Apache guidelines?
--
With best regards,
Alexei
Re: [general] removing people names from sources
Posted by Tim Ellison <t....@gmail.com>.
Alexei Fedotov wrote:
> I started asking people how they would feel about removing their names
> from the source files. One of replies I got was that it would be nice
> to keep the names in the list of contributors. Any ideas on
> feasibility of the file, a suitable name (NOTICE?) and any
> corresponding Apache guidelines?
The NOTICE is not the right place for credits, since that is referenced
directly from the License, and is only for *required* notices.
There are no concrete rules, and as you might guess there are views both
for and against author tags in source code.
I'm inclined to remove them, especially when adding somebody else's
patches to file. As Karl mentioned in his reply, there is a belief that
such attributions should be removed in 'community code':
http://markmail.org/message/sriqzlyckwvzzaru
Regards,
Tim
Re: [general] removing people names from sources
Posted by Alexey Varlamov <al...@gmail.com>.
2008/4/22, Gregory Shimansky <gs...@apache.org>:
> On 21 April 2008 Alexei Fedotov wrote:
> > Hello folks
> >
> > I started asking people how they would feel about removing their names
> > from the source files. One of replies I got was that it would be nice
> > to keep the names in the list of contributors. Any ideas on
> > feasibility of the file, a suitable name (NOTICE?) and any
> > corresponding Apache guidelines?
>
> You can remove my name, I have no objections. I can't speak for others and I
> don't really care whether author tags are present in the files or not.
This should be easier to take for committers, as their names are
publicly credited on Harmony site anyway. ;)
Seriously, I think many peoples are proud of their work and would
prefer to stay listed in credits someway. Don't those projects which
remove @author from sources, maintain a sort of CREDITS.txt instead?
I personally prefer to keep original author names in sources till a
moment then other contributors to the same file/area feel that it is
appropriate to drop them. Seeing names in a quick glance helps to
build that subtle association between peoples and source code, and
adds another link in community in the end.
So I second Xiao-Feng, such removal should not be mechanical.
Regards,
Alexey
>
> --
> Gregory
>
Re: [general] removing people names from sources
Posted by Gregory Shimansky <gs...@apache.org>.
On 21 April 2008 Alexei Fedotov wrote:
> Hello folks
>
> I started asking people how they would feel about removing their names
> from the source files. One of replies I got was that it would be nice
> to keep the names in the list of contributors. Any ideas on
> feasibility of the file, a suitable name (NOTICE?) and any
> corresponding Apache guidelines?
You can remove my name, I have no objections. I can't speak for others and I
don't really care whether author tags are present in the files or not.
--
Gregory
Re: [general] removing people names from sources
Posted by Mark Hindess <ma...@googlemail.com>.
On 21 April 2008 at 14:03, Tim Ellison <t....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So a question back to Alexei (at the top of this thread): Why did you
> start asking people that question?
I assumed it might have had something to do with my comments in:
http://markmail.org/message/cxnu3xa7ye7mld2w
-Mark.
Re: [general] removing people names from sources
Posted by Alexei Fedotov <al...@gmail.com>.
Thanks Mark,
That's true: you have inspired me.
Thanks, Tim, for a question about reasons. Here they are:
1. One day Harmony flow will need a new blood. 2. For DRLVM
contribution I put most of @author tags and felt somehow responsible
about the way how I distributed them. 3. Existing tags multiply tag
paranoia. 4. I'm creating a patch for @author removal [1].
[1] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HARMONY-5769
--
With best regards,
Alexei
On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 5:03 PM, Tim Ellison <t....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Xiao-Feng Li wrote:
>
> > Hi, sorry for being different here.
> >
> > I strongly object to remove author names without any reason, although
> > I don't mind removing myself's name. They put the names in their
> > original code for their own reasons, it's not other people's right to
> > remove their names without any reason.
> >
> > We should respect the original authors. If they put their names there,
> > let's leave them there until people contributing to the same files
> > decide to remove them. Yes, the software is community work, but it
> > doesn't mean that to keep some authors' names contradicts this spirit.
> > On the contrary, I believe a community with individual respect is more
> > healthful. We should leave the choice to the invidual contributors. I
> > personally don't see any negative effect with authors' names in the
> > source files.
> >
> > To have long list of author names in the file header is not very
> > beautiful, but that's the contributors' own decision. If you are also
> > a contributor to same file and you feel it's stupid, you can assume
> > your own responsibility to beautify it. You can decide to remove the
> > author name list. You can also decide to add your own name to the list
> > and make the list into ascii art.
> >
>
> That's how it works at the moment really -- different people do different
> things.
>
> I see no evidence of people jealously guarding areas of code that they
> wrote, and it is good to see that people take areas of responsibility in
> Harmony without claiming fiefdoms.
>
> So a question back to Alexei (at the top of this thread): Why did you start
> asking people that question?
>
> Regards,
> Tim
>
--
With best regards,
Alexei
Re: [general] removing people names from sources
Posted by Tim Ellison <t....@gmail.com>.
Xiao-Feng Li wrote:
> Hi, sorry for being different here.
>
> I strongly object to remove author names without any reason, although
> I don't mind removing myself's name. They put the names in their
> original code for their own reasons, it's not other people's right to
> remove their names without any reason.
>
> We should respect the original authors. If they put their names there,
> let's leave them there until people contributing to the same files
> decide to remove them. Yes, the software is community work, but it
> doesn't mean that to keep some authors' names contradicts this spirit.
> On the contrary, I believe a community with individual respect is more
> healthful. We should leave the choice to the invidual contributors. I
> personally don't see any negative effect with authors' names in the
> source files.
>
> To have long list of author names in the file header is not very
> beautiful, but that's the contributors' own decision. If you are also
> a contributor to same file and you feel it's stupid, you can assume
> your own responsibility to beautify it. You can decide to remove the
> author name list. You can also decide to add your own name to the list
> and make the list into ascii art.
That's how it works at the moment really -- different people do
different things.
I see no evidence of people jealously guarding areas of code that they
wrote, and it is good to see that people take areas of responsibility in
Harmony without claiming fiefdoms.
So a question back to Alexei (at the top of this thread): Why did you
start asking people that question?
Regards,
Tim
Re: [general] removing people names from sources
Posted by Xiao-Feng Li <xi...@gmail.com>.
Hmm, it's all about the committer's decision to add or remove any name
in the files he/she modifies. If Alexei had his reason to remove the
author names from those files, I have no problem. :-) I should have
clarified that, my objection is against making the name removal a rule
to the community, while I don't object to any people's own decision,
which I also respect. :)
Thanks,
xiaofeng
On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 9:30 PM, Mark Hindess
<ma...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> On 21 April 2008 at 20:48, "Xiao-Feng Li" <xi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi, sorry for being different here.
> >
> > I strongly object to remove author names without any reason, although
> > I don't mind removing myself's name. They put the names in their
> > original code for their own reasons, it's not other people's right to
> > remove their names without any reason.
>
> But that is what is happening. For example, Alexei Fedotov's patch
> for HARMONY-5692 includes several changes like:
>
> --- harmony/enhanced/drlvm/trunk/vm/interpreter/src/interp_exports.cpp
> +++ harmony/enhanced/drlvm/trunk/vm/interpreter/src/interp_exports.cpp
> @@ -14,10 +14,6 @@
> * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
> * limitations under the License.
> */
> -/**
> - * @author Ivan Volosyuk
> - * @version $Revision: 1.23.20.3 $
> - */
> #include <stdlib.h>
> #include <stdio.h>
> #include "open/types.h"
>
> with *no* other changes to the source file(s), or things like:
>
> --- harmony/enhanced/drlvm/trunk/vm/vmcore/include/lock_manager.h
> +++ harmony/enhanced/drlvm/trunk/vm/vmcore/include/lock_manager.h
> @@ -14,13 +14,8 @@
> * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
> * limitations under the License.
> */
> -/**
> - * @author Andrey Chernyshev
> - * @version $Revision: 1.1.2.1.4.4 $
> - */
> -
> -#ifndef _lock_manager_H_
> -#define _lock_manager_H_
> +#ifndef _LOCK_MANAGER_H
> +#define _LOCK_MANAGER_H
>
> #include "open/hythread_ext.h"
> #include "open/types.h"
> @@ -65,4 +60,4 @@
>
> #endif // __cplusplus
>
> -#endif // _lock_manager_H_
> +#endif /* _LOCK_MANAGER_H */
>
> where the changes are completely trivial.
>
> (I'm sure Alexei got permission to remove at least the ones with no
> changes at all, but for the sake of argument assume he did not.)
>
> Are either of these fair/unfair? Is a trivial change enough to warrant
> removal (or adding your own name)? What is trivial and what is not?
>
> I don't want to be the judge so I'd prefer to avoid any potential
> unfairness by removing them all. The public history of the project
> has the information for anyone who cares to look.
>
> -Mark.
>
>
>
--
http://xiao-feng.blogspot.com
Re: [general] removing people names from sources
Posted by Mark Hindess <ma...@googlemail.com>.
On 21 April 2008 at 20:48, "Xiao-Feng Li" <xi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, sorry for being different here.
>
> I strongly object to remove author names without any reason, although
> I don't mind removing myself's name. They put the names in their
> original code for their own reasons, it's not other people's right to
> remove their names without any reason.
But that is what is happening. For example, Alexei Fedotov's patch
for HARMONY-5692 includes several changes like:
--- harmony/enhanced/drlvm/trunk/vm/interpreter/src/interp_exports.cpp
+++ harmony/enhanced/drlvm/trunk/vm/interpreter/src/interp_exports.cpp
@@ -14,10 +14,6 @@
* See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
* limitations under the License.
*/
-/**
- * @author Ivan Volosyuk
- * @version $Revision: 1.23.20.3 $
- */
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include "open/types.h"
with *no* other changes to the source file(s), or things like:
--- harmony/enhanced/drlvm/trunk/vm/vmcore/include/lock_manager.h
+++ harmony/enhanced/drlvm/trunk/vm/vmcore/include/lock_manager.h
@@ -14,13 +14,8 @@
* See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
* limitations under the License.
*/
-/**
- * @author Andrey Chernyshev
- * @version $Revision: 1.1.2.1.4.4 $
- */
-
-#ifndef _lock_manager_H_
-#define _lock_manager_H_
+#ifndef _LOCK_MANAGER_H
+#define _LOCK_MANAGER_H
#include "open/hythread_ext.h"
#include "open/types.h"
@@ -65,4 +60,4 @@
#endif // __cplusplus
-#endif // _lock_manager_H_
+#endif /* _LOCK_MANAGER_H */
where the changes are completely trivial.
(I'm sure Alexei got permission to remove at least the ones with no
changes at all, but for the sake of argument assume he did not.)
Are either of these fair/unfair? Is a trivial change enough to warrant
removal (or adding your own name)? What is trivial and what is not?
I don't want to be the judge so I'd prefer to avoid any potential
unfairness by removing them all. The public history of the project
has the information for anyone who cares to look.
-Mark.
Re: [general] removing people names from sources
Posted by Xiao-Feng Li <xi...@gmail.com>.
Hi, sorry for being different here.
I strongly object to remove author names without any reason, although
I don't mind removing myself's name. They put the names in their
original code for their own reasons, it's not other people's right to
remove their names without any reason.
We should respect the original authors. If they put their names there,
let's leave them there until people contributing to the same files
decide to remove them. Yes, the software is community work, but it
doesn't mean that to keep some authors' names contradicts this spirit.
On the contrary, I believe a community with individual respect is more
healthful. We should leave the choice to the invidual contributors. I
personally don't see any negative effect with authors' names in the
source files.
To have long list of author names in the file header is not very
beautiful, but that's the contributors' own decision. If you are also
a contributor to same file and you feel it's stupid, you can assume
your own responsibility to beautify it. You can decide to remove the
author name list. You can also decide to add your own name to the list
and make the list into ascii art.
Thanks,
xiaofeng
On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 7:40 PM, Karl Wettin <ka...@apache.org> wrote:
> Alexei Fedotov skrev:
>
>
>
> > I started asking people how they would feel about removing their names
> > from the source files. One of replies I got was that it would be nice
> > to keep the names in the list of contributors. Any ideas on
> > feasibility of the file, a suitable name (NOTICE?) and any
> > corresponding Apache guidelines?
> >
>
> Lucene only list credits per patch in CHANGES.txt
> Hadoop only list credits per patch in the issue tracker.
>
> Someone recently wrote that it is to emphisise on community ownership and
> that in the end it has very little to do with a single person.
>
>
> karl
>
>
--
http://xiao-feng.blogspot.com
Re: [general] removing people names from sources
Posted by Sian January <si...@googlemail.com>.
I prefer to remove them too. I think there are files in Harmony that could
end up with 10 or more names in otherwise, which just seems silly. Also
since we don't have all the original authors names it would look a bit
biased towards the people who start adding them later on, which doesn't seem
entirely fair. The SVN history combined with JIRA is normally enough to
tell who wrote a particular file.
On 21/04/2008, Tim Ellison <t....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Karl Wettin wrote:
>
> > Alexei Fedotov skrev:
> >
> > > I started asking people how they would feel about removing their names
> > > from the source files. One of replies I got was that it would be nice
> > > to keep the names in the list of contributors. Any ideas on
> > > feasibility of the file, a suitable name (NOTICE?) and any
> > > corresponding Apache guidelines?
> > >
> >
> > Lucene only list credits per patch in CHANGES.txt
> > Hadoop only list credits per patch in the issue tracker.
> >
> > Someone recently wrote that it is to emphisise on community ownership
> > and that in the end it has very little to do with a single person.
> >
>
> In Harmony we only take patches from the original authors, so JIRA would
> be a good audit trail of those, and we have documents from our contributors
> (the ACQ's) that show who has authored the code. We could therefore, create
> a comprehensive CREDITS file if people thought that was the way to go.
>
> But it could get silly, if people wanted some indication of how much they
> contributed, or in which areas, etc.
>
> Regards,
> Tim
>
--
Unless stated otherwise above:
IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number
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Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU
Re: [general] removing people names from sources
Posted by Tim Ellison <t....@gmail.com>.
Karl Wettin wrote:
> Alexei Fedotov skrev:
>> I started asking people how they would feel about removing their names
>> from the source files. One of replies I got was that it would be nice
>> to keep the names in the list of contributors. Any ideas on
>> feasibility of the file, a suitable name (NOTICE?) and any
>> corresponding Apache guidelines?
>
> Lucene only list credits per patch in CHANGES.txt
> Hadoop only list credits per patch in the issue tracker.
>
> Someone recently wrote that it is to emphisise on community ownership
> and that in the end it has very little to do with a single person.
In Harmony we only take patches from the original authors, so JIRA would
be a good audit trail of those, and we have documents from our
contributors (the ACQ's) that show who has authored the code. We could
therefore, create a comprehensive CREDITS file if people thought that
was the way to go.
But it could get silly, if people wanted some indication of how much
they contributed, or in which areas, etc.
Regards,
Tim
Re: [general] removing people names from sources
Posted by Karl Wettin <ka...@apache.org>.
Alexei Fedotov skrev:
> I started asking people how they would feel about removing their names
> from the source files. One of replies I got was that it would be nice
> to keep the names in the list of contributors. Any ideas on
> feasibility of the file, a suitable name (NOTICE?) and any
> corresponding Apache guidelines?
Lucene only list credits per patch in CHANGES.txt
Hadoop only list credits per patch in the issue tracker.
Someone recently wrote that it is to emphisise on community ownership
and that in the end it has very little to do with a single person.
karl