On Jun 6, 2012, at 2:45 PM, Dawid Weiss wrote:

> As
> far as important stuff is done I wouldn't worry about who gets the
> credit...

I think that's kind of short sighted. These credits matter to some, and many of 
these things, while they may not matter to us personally, that does not make 
them unimportant as far as our structure and policies going forward.

While it may sound magnanimous to say, credit be damned, that's just mental 
masturbation, as long as the work comes in thats fine, I think it ignores the 
bigger picture. Why does Random Bum #2 get a credit in a movie? Do simple 
credits like this have value or not? And if they have value for outside 
contributors, do they also have value for committers when committing someone 
else's work? I know I was pumped the first time I got my name in the Lucene 
changes. Does it matter so much these days? No. But I wouldn't presume to make 
that call for others or future committers.

I have always been a fan of our credit system, and I think it serves it's 
purpose well. When I look for things like this, I don't start tracking down 
JIRA issues and SVN commits. I simply browse CHANGES.txt. I search for the 
number of occurrences for a user name, I look at how long its been since 
someone has been active, I check who likes to commit others work, etc. I've 
done all that at one time or another. I know there is a name or two in 
particular that mostly just commits others work if I remember right. If someone 
commits 1000 of someone else's patches, but does not author any, should they 
have no entry in CHANGES.txt? That sounds absurd to me.

It's a great place for prospective employers to look as well.

Personally, I currently don't have much stake in my name showing up in 
CHANGES.txt. It's currently easy enough to find a job regardless, and my ego is 
already fat and happy. But I would not evaluate these things personally - I 
evaluate them from the perspective of this project going forward - with the 
idea that there may be a completely new set of committers in 5 years time. What 
is the best policy for the project, not my own feelings about wanting or not 
wanting credit for something.

- Mark Miller
lucidimagination.com












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