[Open-graphics] Subversion commit policy

[Timothy Normand Miller]

On 3/14/07, Simon <simon80 at gmail.com> wrote:
> My opinion about the license: I think clause 7 belongs with or after
> 0, since they are both definitions, and definitions usually (?) go at
> the start of a license.  Then everything else after three shouldn't be
> in the source code at all, since it is relevant to contributors of
> code and not at all relevant to people merely using or modifying the
> source under the terms of the GPL.  Those clauses can go in
> documentation for contributors, on the website, sort of like what
> MySQL has at http://forge.mysql.com/contribute/cla.php

We can visit the section ordering issue, if that makes things clearer.
 However, the issue of just how much of this needs to be in the source
and how much needs to be in a "licensing" file has been brought up
before.  I believe the assertion was that projects before have had
problems when the full statement wasn't included in every file,
because people don't always read the license file or may assume (for
whatever reason) that it doesn't apply to THIS file.  The common
scenario was that someone didn't know that the rules were different
from what they believed, they committed code, and then got upset later
when they saw their code being used in a way that they didn't approve
of.

>
> The credit section is unclear to me - are you advocating putting names
> in code or not?  I agree with the advice from the "Poisonous People"
> talk (http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=-4216011961522818645)
> about this.  It's hard to decide when to put a name in a file or not,
> and it shouldn't even be an issue, since credit is given in a central
> file.  I also like the idea of preventing individual ownership of any
> part of a project, and I can think of a few reasons not to let anyone
> "own" a specific part of a project:
> -it may discourage others from working on that part, leading to stagnation
> -the owner might feel like they have extra power over other members of
> the community with regards to their code
> -the owner might become biased against things like replacing or
> refactoring away code that they own

I am undecided on this.  I don't mind people getting credit for their
specific contributions.  But if that's not helpful, we shouldn't do
it.  The community should come to a decision, and we'll stick by it.

> These things being said, documentation of the legal and procedural
> stuff is a much needed improvement when it comes to attracting
> participation, so I'm glad the ball is rolling.
>


-- 
Timothy Normand Miller
http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~millerti
Favorite book:  The Design of Everyday Things, Donald A. Norman, ISBN
0-465-06710-7