Glynn Foster writes: > On Fri, 2006-01-06 at 08:49 +0100, Frank Hofmann - OP/N1 RPE wrote: > > I'm not with you on that. The Solaris sourcecode is the product of the > > hard work done by so many people that putting their names into the > > sourcefiles directly, or even keeping a central repository "credits.txt" > > (whatever) is only going to clutter things. It puts my name into a crowd > > of thousands - and definitely not at the top of things. Why should I want > > that ? > > I was suggesting that putting names into the source code was occasional > rather than be the norm [for example, when you create a new file], > however something like a ChangeLog, or multiple ChangeLogs are a pretty
I still think it looks rather cheesy. First of all, there's the plain old clutter problem. I wasn't thrilled with the excess of the CDDL language (the original two-line copyright notice, though slightly annoying, was comparatively short and sweet), but a long list of "brought to you by" attributions would just be downright obnoxious. When I read the code, I want to see descriptions of how it works and the assumptions it makes, not someone's CB handle, favorite pet, or obscure quasi-political manifesto. There are times and places for all those things, but the source to an operating system isn't one of them. (Suggestion: write a book instead. ;-}) I think of this as being similar to littering the code with "#ifdef notyet", "/* XXX broken */", "/* bugid 1234 */", or "/* [EMAIL PROTECTED] changed this to 7 */" trash. If it's not known to be right and isn't actually used in the running system, yank it out. It doesn't belong. We do need attributions for changes and historical information. It just shouldn't pass through the compiler. > good idea. They give a nice summary of the changes going back to the > code, and an easy to find email address for people contributing to the > code that you can contact. > > http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.15 That's exactly the sort of bad example I'd like to see us avoid, if we can. I'd much rather have putback logs (which show bugs fixed and files changed in a given build), SCCS history (which shows who touched which line in a given file for a given change), and a bug database (which contains all the sordid history for a given bug, including how it was evaluated, what problems might be related, and so on). The big failing of that ChangeLog mechanism is that it's both too wordy to be digested easily when hunting down a problem *and* too terse to explain what happened. And the source isn't a museum. > Also remember that not everyone will initially have an account to commit > their work. That (and open access to the SCCS delta information) is the part that really needs to be fixed. I don't think we should try to hack around the missing parts. -- James Carlson, KISS Network <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084 MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677 _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
