[darcs-users] darcs patch: Add copyright information to .hs files.

[Trent W. Buck]

David Roundy <droundy at darcs.net> writes:

> On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 10:09:13AM +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
>> David Roundy writes:
>> 
>>  > Except, of course, that as Trent mentioned, the copyright
>>  > statements *don't* let users know who they need to contact for a
>>  > license exception for their code.  So unless they are scrupulously
>>  > maintained, they're deceptive.
>> 
>> Why do I find it scary that the maintainer of a VCS is arguing that
>> less information is better?
>
> And I'll keep arguing that incorrect information is worse than no
> information.  The correct information is present, and I don't see a
> benefit to adding incorrect information to it.

Strictly speaking, the _darcs metadata only approximates copyright
details.  In particular, there are (potentially) cases where

 - my employer holds copyright on everything I write; or
 - I record a patch that someone else actually wrote.

However I agree with David that unless we're prepared to work out
copyright details -- with AT LEAST as much accuracy as the _darcs
metadata, then inlining the information in the files themselves is an
ongoing, time-consuming activity that has no real benefit to anyone and
can actually be misleading (when the declaration is wrong).