The discussion about @author tags is an old debate that was solved years ago in the favour of removing them. This is actually an official recommendation made by the ASF Board: http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/jakarta-jmeter-dev/200402.mbox/%[email protected]%3E
Like Pascal said, the existing tags in the FOP codebase appear in code that predates this recommendation. In the present case, since you committed the files yourself, it’s crystal-clear who is the author of the code IMO. svn annotate will reveal that much better than an @author tag. I think we should keep in line with the Board recommendation. Thanks, Vincent On 01/03/12 09:00, Glenn Adams wrote: > On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 1:17 AM, Pascal Sancho <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> about @author tag, I agree with Vincent, reasons are clearly detailed here >> [1] (note that it is not a strict rule, just an "incitation"). >> >> IIRC, this "incitation" had been discussed a long time after the FOP >> project began, and in addition, some parts (like rtf) had been developed >> outside FOP before donated to FOP project. So it can remain some old code >> or recently added libs that do not respect FOP coding style rules, that >> should not be taken as example. >> >> [1] >> http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/**fop/dev/conventions.html#java-**style<http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/dev/conventions.html#java-style> > > > From what I can tell from the comments in [1], this convention was > motivated by avoiding possible clutter from having every modification to a > file (by a different author/contributor) be marked; that is, used as a form > of history log. > > From my reading, I don't believe this convention is intended to apply for > original authors. This is backed by the language in [1] explicitly stating > "excepted from this general rule are potentially confusing or wide ranging > changes". In the present case, I would characterize the new CS files as > "wide ranging changes". Also, I note that [1] states that this convention > is: "not enforced; anyone is free to remove such comments". > > As I stated in my prior mail above, I believe there is value to retaining > @author in the case of original author attribution as well as for those > cases where an existing work is significantly altered (in a wide ranging > manner). This information is independent of the svn log and should not be > discarded (in my opinion). > > FYI, I did not add @author to any existing file that I modified; only to > new files I originated. > > G. >
