From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754798AbXDZNyR (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Apr 2007 09:54:17 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754802AbXDZNyR (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Apr 2007 09:54:17 -0400 Received: from mailout.stusta.mhn.de ([141.84.69.5]:35234 "EHLO mailhub.stusta.mhn.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754798AbXDZNyQ (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Apr 2007 09:54:16 -0400 Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:54:26 +0200 From: Adrian Bunk To: Rene Herman Cc: Andrew Morton , "Robert P. J. Day" , Rusty Russell , Alan Cox , Marcel Holtmann , Christoph Hellwig , Linux Kernel Subject: Re: MODULE_MAINTAINER Message-ID: <20070426135426.GM3468@stusta.de> References: <20070404150231.GE27660@stusta.de> <4613C963.6070409@gmail.com> <20070404170016.453d26f1@the-village.bc.nu> <4613D492.2070404@gmail.com> <462C7D74.60003@gmail.com> <1177327476.17026.75.camel@localhost.localdomain> <462CA764.5080401@gmail.com> <20070425181856.42fcfeb4.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <463081E5.5010306@gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <463081E5.5010306@gmail.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.15+20070412 (2007-04-11) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, Apr 26, 2007 at 12:41:41PM +0200, Rene Herman wrote: > On 04/26/2007 03:18 AM, Andrew Morton wrote: > >> On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 14:32:36 +0200 Rene Herman >> wrote: >>> Provide MODULE_MAINTAINER() as a convenient place to stick a name and >>> email address both for drivers having multiple (current and >>> non-current) authors and for when someone who wants to maintain a >>> driver isn't so much an author. > > [ snip ] > >> I'm not sure we want to do this - that's what ./MAINTAINERS is for and we >> end up having to maintain the same info in two places. > > joe@user:~$ less ./MAINTAINERS > ./MAINTAINERS: No such file or directory > > MAINTAINERS is a developers thing, not users, yet a maintainer is someone > who other than by developers wants to be contacted by users of a particular > driver. Right now, a module exports a set of name and email addresses > through the MODULE_AUTHOR tag but given multiple current and non-current > authors, completely or largely orphaned drivers (I have a lot of junk PC > hardware so I come across those relatively often) and people who might be > interested in taking care of a driver but who do not consider themselves an > author for (upto now) having done a s/, struct pt_regs// on it, that tag > only confuses the issue of whom to contact. > > And it in fact even does so when Joe does know about a MAINTAINERS file and > does happen to have a kernel source tree lying around somewhere. With one > set of addresses displayed prominently inside the sourcecode of the very > driver and another one of in a MAINTAINERS file, the first one wins. Joe > would have to be very new to Linux to trust something in the tree that's > not actually compiled over something that is. > > As the first response in this thread Cristoph Hellwig stated that > MODULE_AUTHOR serves no purpose other than what MODULE_MAINTAINER would be > serving. Others agreed and Adrian Bunk suggested deleting MODULE_AUTHOR > outright. > > That would actually also serve my purposes; if there's no MODULE_AUTHOR > confusing the issue, I don't so much need a MODULE_MAINTAINER to fix it > again. I believe having "modinfo" (optionally!) display a contact address > for a driver might be a user advantage, but with all the wrong addresses > gone, I don't really care deeply; MODULE_AUTHOR doesn't serve the purpose > today and with it gone the user at least knows he needs to look elsewhere. > MODULE_AUTHOR is also a credits issue but the information can be > transferred to copyright headers. It would obviously also fix any possible > maintenance issues. > > Alan Cox believes that having author information embedded in the module > serves a legal purpose though and objects to removal. >... Let me try to summarize the points: - you think MODULE_AUTHOR without MODULE_MAINTAINER confuses users - Alan wants MODULE_AUTHOR to stay for easing showing authorship of code to people - I (and others) think MODULE_MAINTAINER wouldn't make sense Is there any good solution for this? E.g. modinfo could be changed to no longer defaulting to show the author? > Rene. cu Adrian -- "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. "Only a promise," Lao Er said. Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed