From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S2992939AbXDDPw0 (ORCPT ); Wed, 4 Apr 2007 11:52:26 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S934056AbXDDPw0 (ORCPT ); Wed, 4 Apr 2007 11:52:26 -0400 Received: from smtpq1.groni1.gr.home.nl ([213.51.130.200]:53074 "EHLO smtpq1.groni1.gr.home.nl" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S934048AbXDDPwZ (ORCPT ); Wed, 4 Apr 2007 11:52:25 -0400 Message-ID: <4613C963.6070409@gmail.com> Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:50:59 +0200 From: Rene Herman User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 (X11/20070221) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Adrian Bunk CC: Marcel Holtmann , Christoph Hellwig , Rusty Russell , Linux Kernel Subject: Re: MODULE_MAINTAINER References: <46138B4C.2050409@gmail.com> <20070404123311.GA18552@infradead.org> <1175698135.5815.447.camel@violet> <20070404150231.GE27660@stusta.de> In-Reply-To: <20070404150231.GE27660@stusta.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-AtHome-MailScanner-Information: Please contact support@home.nl for more information X-AtHome-MailScanner: Found to be clean Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On 04/04/2007 05:02 PM, Adrian Bunk wrote: >>> #define MODULE_MAINTAINER(x) MODULE_AUTHOR(x), please. >>> MODULE_AUTHOR really has meant maintainer in practice for ages, >>> and it's the only actually relevant for users information we >>> should store. >> >> I agree. The actual author information belong into the files >> copyright header. The MODULE_AUTHOR should only show the current >> maintainer and its email address. However this might need some >> cleanup. Maybe it is time that we sync the MAINTAINERS file with >> the MODULE_AUTHOR tag. > > Or even remove the MODULE_AUTHOR tag? > > Even if you would spend the time for syncing the > 1600 MODULE_AUTHOR > tags today, I don't see this happen on an ongoing basis in the > future. Given that people seem to agree that authorship information has no place in the binary, that might actually be best. The problem I'm trying to solve is letting people know whom to contact. Having multiple authors in the MODULES_AUTHOR tag and maintainers who might not be authors are two reasons the current tag doesn't work. Keeping copyright holders in a copyright header and maintainers in the MAINTAINERS file would at least avoid the confusing message the tag sends. As you say in a previous message, users should mostly in fact be contacting their vendor if using distro kernels or, if they're using kermel.org kernels, linux-kernel and can then find the information in the MAINTAINERS file. So, MODULE_AUTHOR be gone? Rene.