[general] Remove @author tags from code (HARMONY-6348)

[Mark Hindess <ma...@googlemail.com>]

In message <52...@brutus>,
"Jesse Wilson (JIRA)" writes:
>
> Remove @author tags from code
> -----------------------------
> 
>                  Key: HARMONY-6348
>                  URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HARMONY-6348
>              Project: Harmony
>           Issue Type: Task
>             Reporter: Jesse Wilson
>             Priority: Minor
> 
> 
> From a 2004 email 
> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/jakarta-jmeter-dev/200402.mbox/<40...@atg.com>
>     "author tags are officially discouraged. these create difficulties in
>      establishing the proper ownership and the protection of our
>      committers. there are other social issues dealing with collaborative
>      development, but the Board is concerned about the legal ramifications
>      around the use of author tags
> 
> I'd like to remove author tags from Harmony code to bring it closer
> into alignment with Android, which has no author tags.

I'm not directly concerned about alignment with Android but I do think that
Apache policy encourages @author tag removal so I am in favour of doing this.

> Unless there are objections, I'll prepare a patch...

What do you think?  If there are no objections then next week I shall
script their removal.

Regards,
 Mark.

Re: [general] Remove @author tags from code (HARMONY-6348)

[Tim Ellison <t....@gmail.com>]

On 09/Oct/2009 00:25, Mark Hindess wrote:
> In message <52...@brutus>,
> "Jesse Wilson (JIRA)" writes:
>> Remove @author tags from code
>> -----------------------------
>>
>>                  Key: HARMONY-6348
>>                  URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HARMONY-6348
>>              Project: Harmony
>>           Issue Type: Task
>>             Reporter: Jesse Wilson
>>             Priority: Minor
>>
>>
>> From a 2004 email 
>> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/jakarta-jmeter-dev/200402.mbox/<40...@atg.com>
>>     "author tags are officially discouraged. these create difficulties in
>>      establishing the proper ownership and the protection of our
>>      committers. there are other social issues dealing with collaborative
>>      development, but the Board is concerned about the legal ramifications
>>      around the use of author tags
>>
>> I'd like to remove author tags from Harmony code to bring it closer
>> into alignment with Android, which has no author tags.
> 
> I'm not directly concerned about alignment with Android but I do think that
> Apache policy encourages @author tag removal so I am in favour of doing this.
> 
>> Unless there are objections, I'll prepare a patch...
> 
> What do you think?  If there are no objections then next week I shall
> script their removal.

As I've said before, I'm +0 for removing the author tags.

I know that concerns have been raised in the past about people getting
the proper recognition for their contributions.  May I suggest that if
you remove all the author tags that you collate the names and post a
list here for posterity.  That should associate people's names with
Harmony archives well enough, or we can combine it with a list of the
ICLAs we have received and create a contributors file in SVN.

Regards,
Tim