[gst-devel] Copyright headers need updating

[Thomas Vander Stichele]

> >
> I think it's a good idea to include the copyright holder and author
> including their email addresses in the header. This is useful when I want
> to contact the person that wrote the code. I wouldn't put relevant things
> in an authors or ChangeLog file either, because when I copy files, I don't
> copy changelogs, but I do copy headers.
> 
> It would certainly help though if people put their name at the top of a
> file when they newly create one and not just copy some boilerplate.
> And it would be useful if people add themselves at the top if they do
> nontrivial changes.

I tend to do this each time I write or change more than ten lines of
code.  Sometimes it makes me feel bad because lots of people writing
more or better code than me still don't do it, but hey :)

> Agreed here. I think it might be a good idea to say "the GStreamer team"
> when we efer to the complete product, as in "the GStreamer team released a
> new version", but when talking about copyrights of individual subsets, I'd
> like the names there.

Agreed.

> Something similar that struck me again recently: When does one need to
> update the year in the header? Does a simple 2 line bugfix require that I
> change "(c) 2005" to "(c) 2005,2006"?

To me the rule of thumb is simple.  Imagine your name wasn't up there at
the top.  If you would add your name for the change you're about to make
in that case, you need to make sure that the current year is being
appended.  So in short - if you make a more than 10 line fix, add a year
to your name.

Thomas


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