file headers

[Robert Collins]

On Sat, 2006-02-25 at 07:11 +1100, Martin Pool wrote:
> On 25 Feb 2006, Robert Collins <robertc at robertcollins.net> wrote:
> > Lets talk about how the top of a source file should look, so we can all
> > agree that we've agreed :).
> 
> I agree except
> 
> > The Authors list there preserves the names of the major authors for this
> > file. Annotate probably isn't enough: What about when people send in
> > patches?. What about when we move code between files? We can just record
> > the global AUTHORS list of course, but IMO a per-file list is a nice
> > courtesy.
> 
> The problem is these things never stay up to date.  It is unclear how
> large of a patch ought to cause an addition, people often don't add it
> in patches, and as you say when code moves you will not want to dig back
> and discover just who updated the code that moved.  In central files you
> can end up with a screenfull of names, which seems unhelpful.
> Conversely if someone totally replaces the code in a file should they
> also remove that line, or leave it as credit for the person who possibly
> laid down the previous version?  (I have seen projects which tried to
> use the javadoc tags to credit each function, and it becomes a bit
> ridiculous.)
> 
> When you apply a patch it's a good practice to include the original
> author's name in the commit message.
> 
> Giving credit is very important and I think the most reasonable way is
> in the NEWS file.  It's one thing that should get updated with every
> substantial change, and at the time of adding an entry we can add the
> relevant names.  It can never go out of date because it's just a
> historical record of who did the work at the time.  It has the advantage
> of showing the names in the release notes too.  fwiw a similar approach
> is followed by the gnu project in changelogs.

Ok. Lets strip the existing Authors: blocks then, with a check that the
names mentioned are listed somewhere.

Rob

-- 
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