How about not adding @author tag to source codes?

["Zheng, Kai" <ka...@intel.com>]

Hi all,

I'm wondering if it's sutiable not to add the @author tag preferred by ApacheDS project in Kerby sources, like below. I know other ASF projects in Hadoop ecosystem disallow any author tags in explicitly checking.

@author <a href="mailto:dev@directory.apache.org">Apache Directory Project</a>

I have a concern if we choose to add it, we may need to add it for all the sources to make it consistent, otherwise it will look strange. So would it sound good not to add it for now? Thanks.

Regards,
Kai

RE: How about not adding @author tag to source codes?

["Zheng, Kai" <ka...@intel.com>]

Thanks Emmanuel for the sharing. Looks good to me adding the adjusted @author tag, just wondering when to add it for the existing sources. Would keep it in mind.

Regards,
Kai

-----Original Message-----
From: Emmanuel Lécharny [mailto:elecharny@gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2015 12:00 PM
To: kerby@directory.apache.org
Subject: Re: How about not adding @author tag to source codes?

Le 02/07/15 03:38, Zheng, Kai a écrit :
> Hi all,
>
> I'm wondering if it's sutiable not to add the @author tag preferred by ApacheDS project in Kerby sources, like below. I know other ASF projects in Hadoop ecosystem disallow any author tags in explicitly checking.
>
> @author <a href="mailto:dev@directory.apache.org">Apache Directory 
> Project</a>
>
> I have a concern if we choose to add it, we may need to add it for all the sources to make it consistent, otherwise it will look strange. So would it sound good not to add it for now? Thanks.

Having it pointing to the kerby mailing list is convenient. I would suggest to change the tag to :

@author <a href="mailto:kerby@directory.apache.org">Apache Directory Kerby Project</a>

Now a bit of history : at the very beginning, we had personal author tag. We rule dthat out and replaced it with a tag that points to the directory mailing list.  One of the reason is that some developpers looking at a class might send a mail using the uthor tag, and that would potentially reach someone who worked on the project years ago but not anymore (somehow, a dead link).

Search engines could bring up a class source when you are looking for a specific term - say, KerberosTime -. like in http://grepcode.com/file/repository.springsource.com/org.apache.directory/com.springsource.org.apache.directory.server.kerberos.shared/1.5.5/org/apache/directory/server/kerberos/shared/messages/value/KerberosTime.java

This is quite usefull to know that it comes from the Directory project, and to know where to send a mail.


What I usually do, when I create a new Java file, is that my IDE automatically adds a header containing this @author tag (that and the AL
2.0 mandatory header, too), so it's a no brainer. I suggest doing the same.

Re: How about not adding @author tag to source codes?

[Emmanuel Lécharny <el...@gmail.com>]

Le 02/07/15 03:38, Zheng, Kai a écrit :
> Hi all,
>
> I'm wondering if it's sutiable not to add the @author tag preferred by ApacheDS project in Kerby sources, like below. I know other ASF projects in Hadoop ecosystem disallow any author tags in explicitly checking.
>
> @author <a href="mailto:dev@directory.apache.org">Apache Directory Project</a>
>
> I have a concern if we choose to add it, we may need to add it for all the sources to make it consistent, otherwise it will look strange. So would it sound good not to add it for now? Thanks.

Having it pointing to the kerby mailing list is convenient. I would
suggest to change the tag to :

@author <a href="mailto:kerby@directory.apache.org">Apache Directory Kerby Project</a>

Now a bit of history : at the very beginning, we had personal author tag. We rule dthat out and replaced it with a tag that points to the directory mailing list.  One of the reason is that some developpers looking at a class might send a mail using the uthor tag, and that would potentially reach someone who worked on the project years ago but not anymore (somehow, a dead link).

Search engines could bring up a class source when you are looking for a specific term - say, KerberosTime -. like in http://grepcode.com/file/repository.springsource.com/org.apache.directory/com.springsource.org.apache.directory.server.kerberos.shared/1.5.5/org/apache/directory/server/kerberos/shared/messages/value/KerberosTime.java

This is quite usefull to know that it comes from the Directory project, and to know where to send a mail.


What I usually do, when I create a new Java file, is that my IDE
automatically adds a header containing this @author tag (that and the AL
2.0 mandatory header, too), so it's a no brainer. I suggest doing the same.