Joerg Schilling wrote: > Darren J Moffat <Darren.Moffat at Sun.COM> wrote: > >> I'm all for comments in code to say why things are they way they are but >> the "who did what when and why" belongs in the SCM system not in the >> source code. > > It is not as simple as it might look.... > > There are two different types of notes: > > - who (in person) did a change (or checked it in) > This is always a natural person. > > - who owns the Copyright on a change. This may be another > person than the person who did check the delta in. > This also may be a "person" like "Sun Microsystems" > > A SCM deals with the first, but not really with the latter.
SCM alone doesn't deal with the later but the way it is used can. If there is a new copyright holder the changes to "the source" would contain a new copyright statement as a comment. The SCM will show you which change records added that new copyright and all future changes to those "lines". In the current case for ON with sponsored putbacks where a Sun engineer is doing the change on behalf of someone external the file delta comments in the SCM indicate who it was done for. This in my opinion is a huge difference from including RCS like $Log$ change history inside the file. Now this becomes complex when there are multiple unrelated changes in a single delta. However that is a problem we have regardless of any issue of copyright of a given change. It is also one that there has been some discussion on already here. -- Darren J Moffat
