Commit counts (was: RE: excalibur thread update)

[Leo Sutic <le...@inspireinfrastructure.com>]

> From: Niclas Hedhman [mailto:niclas@hedhman.org] 
> 
> On Thursday 18 March 2004 04:21, Alex Karasulu wrote:
> > Now that it's a matter of loosing history this is no
> > longer a matter of preference.  The history is something we 
> owe to all 
> > contributors and I think Niclas will appreciate that.
> 
> Personally, I couldn't care less if the history of my work is 
> available or 
> not. I am listed as one of the developers, on equal terms 
> with everyone else.
> 
> I got blasted last time I put a foot forward and pointed towards who 
> contribute and who doesn't, and was TOLD in rather sharp 
> words, that who does the work doesn't matter.

Yes. The rationale is simply that you end up using the fact that 
you went on a 800+ commits coding spree to justify that coding 
spree.

For example, if I nuke Merlin from CVS, then I'm doing work. Since
I do the work, the rest of y'all should just accept what I'm doing,
right?

If you think the above is far-fetched, then consider what happens if
two committers with roughly equal committ counts disagree.
(If you have a hard time picturing it, go back in the archives and
check what happened prior to one committer having his commit rights 
revoked was kicked.)

What this "it doesn't matter who does the work" accomplishes is
that everyone is forced to *talk to* the other developers, *establish
consensus* and so on. Keeps the community happy.

Trust me, you don't want to go to the land where number of commits
determine your standing. You really, really don't. It may seem
counter to your ideas of a meritocracy, but it is the least bad
system.

> Obviously it does now - So please, stop the HIPPOCRACY. 
> Either it does matter (history is preserved, and I keep 
> bugging about 'stop the rhetoric and do the work') or it 
> does NOT matter (history is lost, and I'll shut up).

The "who did it" doesn't matter. This is for legal reasons. In
order for the ASF to be able to protect us the code must be
"by the ASF". That's why the @author tags were removed.

But having a changelog is good.

/LS


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