File headers

There is a header on top of most files in Campcaster that
looks like this:

/*----------------------------------------------------------
--------------------

    Copyright (c) 2004 Media Development Loan Fund

    This file is part of the Campcaster project.
    http://campcaster.cam
pware.org/
    To report bugs, send an e-mail to bugscampware.org

    Campcaster is free software; you can redistribute it
and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by
    the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    Campcaster is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. 
See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General
Public License
    along with Campcaster; if not, write to the Free
Software
    Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA
 02111-1307
 USA


    Author   : $Author: fgerlits $
    Version  : $Revision: 2329 $
    Location : $URL:
svn://code.campware.org/livesupport/trunk/livesupport/src/mo
dules/archiveServer/var/install/getXrUrl.php
$

------------------------------------------------------------
------------------*/

It seems to me that the only useful part of this is the
"Version" line.
  The copyright and license is covered by the license file
sitting in
the root directory.  "Author" you can get by
looking up the version in
the logs.  "Location"...well, I could go either
way, but I am wondering
if this has ever been used in real life?

What I propose is that in the future, we remove that big
block and
replace it with simply:

/**
 * Version: $Revision$
 */

- Paul

Hi Paul,

I assumed the copyright notice was some kind of legal
requirement.  Of 
the libraries we use, almost all of them have a copyright
notice in all 
their source files:

no copyright notice:
cppunit, lcov

very basic copyright notice, only in header files:
xmlrpc++

elaborate copyright notice in all source files:
boost curl gstreamer gtk+ gtkmm libodbc++ libtar libxml++
taglib

So I suggest you that check some GNU guidelines or consult
with lawyers 
before you remove them.

As to utility: $Revision$ is not useful, either, because
'svn info' 
tells you this information, and much more.

Ferenc

in the GNU license they suggest that you have this in each
file...

http://www.gnu.o
rg/licenses/gpl.html
under:

How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs

To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is
safest 
to attach them to the start of each source file to most
effectively 
convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have
at least 
the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the
full notice is found.

At 20:05 16.10.2006, you wrote:
>There is a header on top of most files in Campcaster
that looks like this:
>
>/*------------------------------------------------------
------------------------
>
>     Copyright (c) 2004 Media Development Loan Fund
>
>     This file is part of the Campcaster project.
>     http://campcaster.cam
pware.org/
>     To report bugs, send an e-mail to bugscampware.org
>
>     Campcaster is free software; you can redistribute
it and/or modify
>     it under the terms of the GNU General Public
License as published by
>     the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
the License, or
>     (at your option) any later version.
>
>     Campcaster is distributed in the hope that it will
be useful,
>     but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
warranty of
>     MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE.  See the
>     GNU General Public License for more details.
>
>     You should have received a copy of the GNU General
Public License
>     along with Campcaster; if not, write to the Free
Software
>     Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330,
Boston, MA  02111-1307
>  USA
>
>
>     Author   : $Author: fgerlits $
>     Version  : $Revision: 2329 $
>     Location : $URL:
>svn://code.campware.org/livesupport/trunk/livesupport/sr
c/modules/archiveServer/var/install/getXrUrl.php
>$
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
----------------------*/
>
>It seems to me that the only useful part of this is the
"Version" line.
>   The copyright and license is covered by the license
file sitting in
>the root directory.  "Author" you can get by
looking up the version in
>the logs.  "Location"...well, I could go
either way, but I am wondering
>if this has ever been used in real life?
>
>What I propose is that in the future, we remove that big
block and
>replace it with simply:
>
>/**
>  * Version: $Revision$
>  */
>
>- Paul


Micz Flor - miczmi.cz

content and media development                         http://mi.cz
------------------------------------------------------------
------
http://www.campware.org
-- http://www.redall.de
-- http://suemi.de
------------------------------------------------------------
------

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 22:26:22 +0200 (CEST) Ferenc Gerlits
wrote:
> Hi Paul,
> 
> I assumed the copyright notice was some kind of legal
requirement.  Of 
> the libraries we use, almost all of them have a
copyright notice in all 
> their source files:
> 
> no copyright notice:
> cppunit, lcov
> 
> very basic copyright notice, only in header files:
> xmlrpc++
> 
> elaborate copyright notice in all source files:
> boost curl gstreamer gtk+ gtkmm libodbc++ libtar
libxml++ taglib
> 
> So I suggest you that check some GNU guidelines or
consult with lawyers 
> before you remove them.
> 
> As to utility: $Revision$ is not useful, either,
because 'svn info' 
> tells you this information, and much more.
> 
> Ferenc

$Revision$ is sometimes useful in exported code, IMO.
It might be better to have this info in each source file.

-- 
Tomáš Hlava
thlavaemail.cz

Tomas Hlava wrote:
>> As to utility: $Revision$ is not useful, either,
because 'svn info' 
>> tells you this information, and much more.
>>
>> Ferenc
> 
> $Revision$ is sometimes useful in exported code, IMO.
> It might be better to have this info in each source
file.

Yes, that's the reason I thought it might be useful as well
- if you are
looking at some remote code, you will be able to tell what
version they
are using.  But on the other hand, there should be other
ways to tell
this bit of information.

- Paul

Paul Baranowski wrote:
 > Tomas Hlava wrote:
 >>> As to utility: $Revision$ is not useful,
either, because 'svn info'
 >>> tells you this information, and much more.
 >>>
 >>> Ferenc
 >> $Revision$ is sometimes useful in exported code,
IMO.
 >> It might be better to have this info in each
source file.
 >
 > Yes, that's the reason I thought it might be useful as
well - if you are
 > looking at some remote code, you will be able to tell
what version they
 > are using.  But on the other hand, there should be
other ways to tell
 > this bit of information.
 >
 > - Paul
 >

I don't think the gist of my message came across very well.

$Revision$ is not useful in itself, because if the file is
in the 
Campcaster SVN tree, then you can use svn info, and if it's
somewhere 
else, then it's revision 1723 of what?  Without the
copyright notice 
(the name and URL of the project) and the $URL$ tag (the
location of the 
file within the Campcaster development tree), it's
meaningless.

So, a shortened and unambiguated version of my previous
mail:
Please, don't remove the headers.

Ferenc