linux-kernel - Re: MODULE

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Date:	Wed, 04 Apr 2007 18:38:42 +0200
From:	Rene Herman <rene.herman@...il.com>
To:	Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>
CC:	Adrian Bunk <bunk@...sta.de>,
	Marcel Holtmann <marcel@...tmann.org>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>,
	Rusty Russell <rusty@...tcorp.com.au>,
	Linux Kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: MODULE_MAINTAINER

On 04/04/2007 06:00 PM, Alan Cox wrote:

>> Given that people seem to agree that authorship information has no place 
>> in the binary, that might actually be best.
> 
> Authorship information is very useful in the binary, especially when you
> have to get lawyers involved in explaining things to people.

Okay.

>> So, MODULE_AUTHOR be gone?
> 
> Not if I have anything to do with it. Putting maintainer in is not a
> bad idea but that assumes it gets maintained, the beauty of _AUTHOR
> is that it's generally right and stays that way or approximately so.

Case in point; someone is working with me in private on a new "mitsumi" 
legacy CD-ROM driver. He's authoring the actual driver and upto now I've 
just been doing some peripheral module infrastructure work. Given that I 
have the hardware to test the thing, I'll be the maintainer though.

Adding myself as a MODULE_AUTHOR would be largely incorrect and adding 
myself as the _only_ MODULE_AUTHOR would be so factually incorrect I 
wouldn't, even if only from a credits point of view. Yet I do want to 
make sure people contact me, and not the MODULE_AUTHOR (which will 
happen no matter the MAINTAINERS file).

Other cases-in-point; I've lately been rummaging through sound/isa a 
bit. Nothing much copyrightable again but especially in those situations 
where (some of the) original authors are no longer active, I do again 
want people to contact me about them if needed. And all the "which one 
of the three people listed here is maintaining this" is yet another.

MODULE_AUTHOR may be approximately right but especially with old drivers 
it also has little relation with who's maintaining the thing.

If MODULE_AUTHOR stays, can I just have MODULE_MAINTAINER please? It 
doesn't need to be added to drivers directly, it can just grow (and 
being inside the code, I suppose it'll likely stay up to date better 
than the MAINTAINERS file).

Rene.

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