Re: [GNUnet-developers] Moral rights: credits

[Schanzenbach, Martin]

> On 8. Oct 2019, at 07:50, t3sserakt <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> Signed PGP part
> 
> 
> 
> On 07.10.2019 20:29, Schanzenbach, Martin wrote:
>> I do not have a strong opinion either way, but I find the argument not
>> convincing.
>> I strongly believe that a part of the source/component has probably been
>> written and is maintained by a very limited number of people. Occasionally
>> somebody might "adopt" this but at that point this person quite clearly
>> has the agency and responsibility to do add a new @authors line.
>> 
>> Somebody adding an occasional patch is of course also the author of that
>> particular change, but the authors info is more than credit to the
>> copyright/code, it is also an indication who is most likely knowledgeable
>> about that part, e.g. if somebody wants to use it or improve/fix it or just
>> understand it.
>> 
>> Hence, from the point of view of credit/copyright I do not really care.
>> But as a general indicator who wrote that part (esp. in GNUnet: that 
>> component)
>> I find it useful.
>> 
> 
> I agree with Martin, but there are still problems we need to address. What 
> about those authors who wrote most of the code, but aren't available for 
> questions any more. What about people who aren't authors of code, but despite 
> that know much about the code. Maybe we shouldn't call those persons being 
> knowledgeable authors, but somehow different.

I actually though te same thing after I wrote the mail.
For people who are "awol": Still useful in order to "know" that this component 
is unmaintained (e.g. in order to "deprecate" it eventually if unused).
Regarding people who are knowledgeable but have not contributed code: I 
actually included those in my description above (adoption).
The @author _tag_ might be misleading, but that is just doxygen markup, really.

BR

> 
> Cheers
> 
> t3sserakt
> 
>> 
>> BR
>> 
>> 
>>> On 7. Oct 2019, at 19:51, Christian Grothoff <address@hidden>
>>>  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Signed PGP part
>>> Hi all,
>>> 
>>> Sorry for cross-posting, but 'someone' just triggered me and this
>>> applies to multiple packages, at least in theory:
>>> 
>>> On 10/7/19 7:33 PM, someone wrote (privately):
>>> 
>>>> Trying to define authors of individual source files (as opposed to
>>>> individual commits) seems hopelessly subjective as they get extensively
>>>> edited over time.
>>>> 
>>> This was about the community removing author attributions in individual
>>> source files from glibc.  I have been thinking about this as well
>>> recently, and 'someone's message succinctly describes the issue: we have
>>> @author comments, but they don't really reflect contributors. Often we
>>> forget to add, copy or even remove @author tags, and this is not easily
>>> fixed either.
>>> 
>>> Naturally, this is not about removing (all) credit: we would still have
>>> both the top-level AUTHORS file and the attribution via the Git history.
>>> 
>>> So, please do let me know if you (for whatever reason) would object to
>>> removing the per-source file @author attributions. If nobody has a
>>> (reasonable / sustained) objection, I'll probably remove the @author
>>> lines in a few weeks.
>>> 
>>> Thanks!
>>> 
>>> Christian
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
>

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