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Posted to dev@struts.apache.org by David Graham <gr...@yahoo.com> on 2004/01/08 02:09:22 UTC
@author tags in Struts code
The @author javadoc tag topic has been discussed on commons-dev recently
and Ted brought it up in a recent struts-dev thread so I thought it might
be nice to get the Struts community's opinion on it. Some arguments
against @author tags by Greg Stein can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/yrlhu
I'm not too concerned about the legal issues because I don't think there
are any. I think it's a good idea to remove all of the tags rather than
each person removing their own so that the remaining tags don't
misrepresent who did most of the work (kind of an all or nothing deal).
Comments?
David
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Re: @author tags in Struts code
Posted by "Craig R. McClanahan" <cr...@apache.org>.
Quoting David Graham <gr...@yahoo.com>:
> The @author javadoc tag topic has been discussed on commons-dev recently
> and Ted brought it up in a recent struts-dev thread so I thought it might
> be nice to get the Struts community's opinion on it. Some arguments
> against @author tags by Greg Stein can be found here:
> http://tinyurl.com/yrlhu
>
I'm +1 on removing @author tags. Struts is a work of many many hands, and
removing them avoids any need to decide how "significant" a particular
contribution is before it warrants adding that person.
> I'm not too concerned about the legal issues because I don't think there
> are any. I think it's a good idea to remove all of the tags rather than
> each person removing their own so that the remaining tags don't
> misrepresent who did most of the work (kind of an all or nothing deal).
I'm not at all concerned about any potential legal issues related to @author.
It's the social impact of this being a community project that is more
important. The fact that my name is all over the place, for example, distorts
the reality of the last year or so when I haven't had as much time as I'd like
to participate.
>
> Comments?
>
> David
>
Craig
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Re: @author tags in Struts code
Posted by "Craig R. McClanahan" <cr...@apache.org>.
Quoting Paul Sundling <to...@tkz.net>:
> I can see a lot of valid points in the article. I also don't buy the
> positive side regarding author tags helping point out who to go to for
> help on a particular file. Whatever the final decision, the philosophy
> should be documented on the web site in the section where it talks about
> how to help. There are however two reasons why I think such artifacts
> as author tags are good (although I think CVS comments are better if
> consistent).
>
> 1. For non-committers, it gives us warm fuzzies. It's like a little
> flag that says I actually made my contribution to open source, like more
> of us out there should. You can't go in CVS and see that people like me
> added a patch, unless a committer actually takes time to actually
> mention it without an author tag.
That particular practice is something we focus on pretty heavily on Struts --
the only times I've ever seen someone forget this was an oversight or a
too-quick press of the submit button; in those cases, the standard practice has
been to note the contribution in a message to STRUTS-DEV (where the CVS
messages also go) in order to ensure that credit is logged someplace
historical.
If there were some template text,
> like "Based on a patch contributed to ASF by johndoe@domain.com related
> to bugzilla # ....." in the CVS log I think that would be good enough.
>
The CVS commit template already includes "Submitted by:" for Struts, to nag us
committers into remembering to give credit where credit is due.
> Even though I've had a VERY VERY minor contribution, it was quite a rush
> to have an author tag on a minor support file. It made me feel like a
> part of the project and it made me want to get more involved. [I'm
> getting into unit testing, so I figure I might make contributions there
> first down the line.] I would never want to cause any resentment
> against those doing the brunt of the work or claim that I'm on the same
> level. At the same time, it's nice to have a little reminder somewhere
> that I'm making a contribution, however small.
>
Every committer to Struts will *welcome* contributions on unit testing! But I
guess I need to ask ... does getting properly acknowledged in the CVS commit
messages give you the same level of warm fuzzies? I ask because that is an
automatic process (at least when I do commits based off a contributed patch);
but it's a judgement call on whether the change was significant enough to
warrant adding an @author tag -- where do you draw the line? A one-line typo
fix? A ten line patch? A hundred line new method? A complete new class?
There's no decision needed for CVS commit attribution -- and that attribution is
visible to the world at large too:
http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs/jakarta-struts/
> 2. There should be some tracking for the origins of code in case we ever
> get attacked by a company like SCO. Maybe there's already some cross
> referencing system that I'm not aware of between bugzilla and CVS that
> already takes care of this. I guess this is counter to legal protection
> under the ASF umbrella. Let's say I work at Top Secret Corp or Run By
> Lawyers Inc. and I submit a patch that my employer would see as
> infringing code. It's good code and one of committers (David Graham for
> instance, since I'm replying to his message) commits it into CVS. It
> now looks like David was the source for the code and when Top Secret
> Corp lawyers started sniffing around it'd be harder to find out the true
> source. I would guess this might end up being a major issue depending
> on how the SCO law suit ends.
>
This is one of the topics that is being addressed in discussions on an updated
Apache Software Foundation license that is currently being discussed and
reviewed. But your point is taken ... attribution is defensive as well as
warm-fuzzy-producing :-).
> Paul Sundling
>
Craig
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Re: @author tags in Struts code
Posted by David Graham <gr...@yahoo.com>.
--- Paul Sundling <to...@tkz.net> wrote:
> I can see a lot of valid points in the article. I also don't buy the
> positive side regarding author tags helping point out who to go to for
> help on a particular file. Whatever the final decision, the philosophy
>
> should be documented on the web site in the section where it talks about
>
> how to help. There are however two reasons why I think such artifacts
> as author tags are good (although I think CVS comments are better if
> consistent).
>
> 1. For non-committers, it gives us warm fuzzies. It's like a little
> flag that says I actually made my contribution to open source, like more
>
> of us out there should. You can't go in CVS and see that people like me
>
> added a patch, unless a committer actually takes time to actually
> mention it without an author tag. If there were some template text,
> like "Based on a patch contributed to ASF by johndoe@domain.com related
> to bugzilla # ....." in the CVS log I think that would be good enough.
Most of the time when patches are applied the contributor is mentioned in
the cvs commit message. All commits dealing with bugzilla are tagged with
something like "Fixes PR 1234" so you can go to the bugzilla page for more
info. We also maintain a list of contributors on the website for everyone
to see, not just those browsing the javadocs.
>
> Even though I've had a VERY VERY minor contribution, it was quite a rush
>
> to have an author tag on a minor support file. It made me feel like a
> part of the project and it made me want to get more involved. [I'm
> getting into unit testing, so I figure I might make contributions there
> first down the line.] I would never want to cause any resentment
> against those doing the brunt of the work or claim that I'm on the same
> level. At the same time, it's nice to have a little reminder somewhere
> that I'm making a contribution, however small.
>
> 2. There should be some tracking for the origins of code in case we ever
>
> get attacked by a company like SCO. Maybe there's already some cross
> referencing system that I'm not aware of between bugzilla and CVS that
> already takes care of this. I guess this is counter to legal protection
>
> under the ASF umbrella. Let's say I work at Top Secret Corp or Run By
> Lawyers Inc. and I submit a patch that my employer would see as
> infringing code. It's good code and one of committers (David Graham for
>
> instance, since I'm replying to his message) commits it into CVS. It
> now looks like David was the source for the code and when Top Secret
> Corp lawyers started sniffing around it'd be harder to find out the true
>
> source. I would guess this might end up being a major issue depending
> on how the SCO law suit ends.
This is another good reason to not accept patches through struts-dev and
only through bugzilla. When the committer commits the code they will tag
it with a bugzilla ticket number. Bugzilla keeps track of who the patch
came from so questions like the above never come up.
David
>
> Paul Sundling
>
>
> David Graham wrote:
>
> >The @author javadoc tag topic has been discussed on commons-dev
> recently
> >and Ted brought it up in a recent struts-dev thread so I thought it
> might
> >be nice to get the Struts community's opinion on it. Some arguments
> >against @author tags by Greg Stein can be found here:
> >http://tinyurl.com/yrlhu
> >
> >I'm not too concerned about the legal issues because I don't think
> there
> >are any. I think it's a good idea to remove all of the tags rather
> than
> >each person removing their own so that the remaining tags don't
> >misrepresent who did most of the work (kind of an all or nothing deal).
> >
> >Comments?
> >
> >David
> >
> >__________________________________
> >Do you Yahoo!?
> >Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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> >
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> >To unsubscribe, e-mail: struts-dev-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
> >For additional commands, e-mail: struts-dev-help@jakarta.apache.org
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
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Re: @author tags in Struts code
Posted by Paul Sundling <to...@tkz.net>.
I can see a lot of valid points in the article. I also don't buy the
positive side regarding author tags helping point out who to go to for
help on a particular file. Whatever the final decision, the philosophy
should be documented on the web site in the section where it talks about
how to help. There are however two reasons why I think such artifacts
as author tags are good (although I think CVS comments are better if
consistent).
1. For non-committers, it gives us warm fuzzies. It's like a little
flag that says I actually made my contribution to open source, like more
of us out there should. You can't go in CVS and see that people like me
added a patch, unless a committer actually takes time to actually
mention it without an author tag. If there were some template text,
like "Based on a patch contributed to ASF by johndoe@domain.com related
to bugzilla # ....." in the CVS log I think that would be good enough.
Even though I've had a VERY VERY minor contribution, it was quite a rush
to have an author tag on a minor support file. It made me feel like a
part of the project and it made me want to get more involved. [I'm
getting into unit testing, so I figure I might make contributions there
first down the line.] I would never want to cause any resentment
against those doing the brunt of the work or claim that I'm on the same
level. At the same time, it's nice to have a little reminder somewhere
that I'm making a contribution, however small.
2. There should be some tracking for the origins of code in case we ever
get attacked by a company like SCO. Maybe there's already some cross
referencing system that I'm not aware of between bugzilla and CVS that
already takes care of this. I guess this is counter to legal protection
under the ASF umbrella. Let's say I work at Top Secret Corp or Run By
Lawyers Inc. and I submit a patch that my employer would see as
infringing code. It's good code and one of committers (David Graham for
instance, since I'm replying to his message) commits it into CVS. It
now looks like David was the source for the code and when Top Secret
Corp lawyers started sniffing around it'd be harder to find out the true
source. I would guess this might end up being a major issue depending
on how the SCO law suit ends.
Paul Sundling
David Graham wrote:
>The @author javadoc tag topic has been discussed on commons-dev recently
>and Ted brought it up in a recent struts-dev thread so I thought it might
>be nice to get the Struts community's opinion on it. Some arguments
>against @author tags by Greg Stein can be found here:
>http://tinyurl.com/yrlhu
>
>I'm not too concerned about the legal issues because I don't think there
>are any. I think it's a good idea to remove all of the tags rather than
>each person removing their own so that the remaining tags don't
>misrepresent who did most of the work (kind of an all or nothing deal).
>
>Comments?
>
>David
>
>__________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
>http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: struts-dev-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
>For additional commands, e-mail: struts-dev-help@jakarta.apache.org
>
>
>
>
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