From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 17887 invoked by alias); 20 Sep 2002 21:58:33 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gdb-patches-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-patches-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 17879 invoked from network); 20 Sep 2002 21:58:32 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mx1.redhat.com) (66.187.233.31) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 20 Sep 2002 21:58:32 -0000 Received: from int-mx1.corp.redhat.com (int-mx1.corp.redhat.com [172.16.52.254]) by mx1.redhat.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g8KLf5i06370 for ; Fri, 20 Sep 2002 17:41:05 -0400 Received: from potter.sfbay.redhat.com (potter.sfbay.redhat.com [172.16.27.15]) by int-mx1.corp.redhat.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g8KLwTh02591; Fri, 20 Sep 2002 17:58:29 -0400 Received: from romulus.sfbay.redhat.com (IDENT:vUeLgvX3fiKubJXHsxce+ShU5wkKKCCl@romulus.sfbay.redhat.com [172.16.27.251]) by potter.sfbay.redhat.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g8KLwPC20619; Fri, 20 Sep 2002 14:58:25 -0700 Received: (from kev@localhost) by romulus.sfbay.redhat.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) id g8KLwMq27330; Fri, 20 Sep 2002 14:58:22 -0700 Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 14:58:00 -0000 From: Kevin Buettner Message-Id: <1020920215822.ZM27329@localhost.localdomain> In-Reply-To: Andrew Cagney "Re: [PATCH RFC] Character set support" (Sep 20, 12:08pm) References: <1020913003056.ZM15701@localhost.localdomain> <1020920003625.ZM23109@localhost.localdomain> <3D8A75F3.3040704@ges.redhat.com> <1020920071148.ZM24070@localhost.localdomain> <3D8B47E9.5020100@ges.redhat.com> To: Andrew Cagney Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC] Character set support Cc: gdb-patches@sources.redhat.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-SW-Source: 2002-09/txt/msg00542.txt.bz2 On Sep 20, 12:08pm, Andrew Cagney wrote: > The place to give credit for a work is either the top of a new file, > and/or in the doco. Suggest updating the (C) entry to include: > > Contributed by Red Hat, Inc. > Written by Jim Blandy. While I certainly have no objection to changing the copyright text in the manner that you suggest, in my opinion, the names at the top of a source file often end up being quite irrevelvant. Many times, people who made substantial contributions to a file don't appear at the top of the file, but only in the ChangeLog entries. In my opinion, names that appear in ChangeLog entries are frequently more important than the names at the top of a particular source file. > 10 years from now, people won't be looking in the ChangeLog. I disagree. When I want to find out who it was that was responsible for a particular file, I look in the ChangeLog files. I even have ChangeLog summarization scripts that can help me with this task. > > If you really need to know who committed a change, the CVS logs and > > mailing list traffic are available. Also, I believe there is ample > > precedent in other projects (e.g. gcc) for the way I did things. > > The accepted GDB convention is per the above. I did not realize that this was the accepted convention. Was there some communication on this matter that I missed? If it is the accepted convention, then I think it ought to be reconsidered. First, I believe it is important to give credit where credit is due. Changes contributed by someone without write after approval permission ought to look the same as those contributed by someone who is given permission to commit the changes themselves. Second there are a number of automatic tools which read ChangeLog files. I believe the output from these tools will be better if the name of the contributor (and not the committer) appear in the header line. > It means that the ChangeLog stands on its own and does not depend on > access to either the CVS repository or the mailing lists. It leaves > no confusion over who committed and who authored the change. I think the detail regarding who committed a change is largely irrelevant unless there happens to be a problem with the mechanics of the commit. But these problems are usually found fairly quickly and it is usually clear who should get the blame in such cases. (Again, cvs logs and mailing list traffic are helpful.) The ChangeLog should be viewed as a longer term record of who has done what and why. When viewed in this way, the person who happened to commit the patch is unimportant. As I stated earlier, I think it's appropriate that the following form be used when non-trivial changes to the contributor's patch need to be made: YYYY-MM-DD Committer From Contributor : * somefile (somefunction): Something was done. OTOH, when a contributor's patch can be applied without change, I think it's appropriate to use the following form: YYYY-MM-DD Contributor * somefile (somefunction): Something was done. I have consulted the GNU coding standard regarding this matter. See: http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards_42.html#SEC42 According to this document, the header line says who made the change. I suppose we could interpret this to mean the committer of the change, but I think it's more meaningful to interpret this as the actual author of the change. I've discussed this matter with Jim Blandy, and he suggested that the following form might be useful in some cases: YYYY-MM-DD Contributor Committed by Committer . * somefile (somefunction): Something was done. I'm willing to add a "Committed by" line if you wish, but I strongly believe that Jim's name should remain on the header line. Finally, I should note that I missed adding in the include of "gdb_string.h" in c-lang.c when my update prior to the commit turned up a conflict that needed resolution. What I should have done in this case is to create a separate Changelog entry crediting/blaming me in my attempt to resolve the conflict. I appreciate David Carlton's efforts at fixing this problem. Anyway, I am also willing to add an entry which notes my efforts at resolving the merge conflict. Kevin