I agree with Antonio about the utility of @author tags (I have also found them very useful), and I also think that the ASF board's concerns about the dangers of "ownership" are probably overblown.
I don't think the ASF should discourage developers from keeping useful metadata about the code inside the source files. What better place to put the metadata than in the code? This makes it more likely to be used and kept up to date than if it was stored somewhere else, IMHO. I don't agree with the idea that banning author tags would make the "changes" file more useful because it would encourage developers to keep it up to date. On the contrary, I think people are encouraged when you make things easy; I don't think requiring people to do things the hard way constitutes "encouragement". :-) If the board insists then ... OK ... but if the board only "discourages" the use of @author tags on the grounds that they COULD cause problems, then I think Cocoon should note their concern but keep the @author tags because in THIS CASE they have NOT caused problems. Just my 2c. Con > -----Original Message----- > From: Antonio Gallardo [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, 27 February 2004 7:53 a.m. > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: ASF Board Summary for February 18, 2004 > > > Steven Noels dijo: > > On 26 Feb 2004, at 17:12, Torsten Curdt wrote: > > > >> + and we remove all author tags > > > > I find this just a little bit too reactionary - especially for the > > little known/used areas of code. We haven't had "ownership issues" > > because of them in the past, not? These tags sometimes help > to find a > > contact, when questions remain unanswered on the list. > > [RT]: > > Will be enough to browse the CVS to find the folks involved > in a concrete > file or block? No, we cannot trace many files to the first post. The > original file, who made changes, etc? > > "When I started to use the auth-fw, the @author tags allow me > to know the > names of people that was involved in this. After this I also used the > names to harvest the mailarchives looking for help about the auth-fw. > > Best Regards, > > Antonio Gallardo. > >
