ccan code breaks older build farm systems

[Rusty Russell]

On Thu, 7 Jul 2011 14:02:10 +0200, Michael Adam <obnox at samba.org> wrote:
> simo wrote:
> > > 
> > > Please, does anyone have a better reason to put a 25 line header on each
> > > file which contains so little useful information?  Better than "that's
> > > what we've always done?".
> > 
> > Do you have a good reason not to ? :-)
> 
> A couple of reasons:
> 
> * Well, in Samba, the header contains the info who the copyright
>   holders of the specific file are. I think this is useful.

Is it really?  It's useful to know who to ask if you have questions, but
the git history is more useful than an inaccurate header in this case.

> * It is also a courtesy for those looking at the code file:
>   They don't have to look into a different file to see the
>   license.

There are many courtesies we could add; is licensing really the most
important one?

> * Stating license and copyright in each file is just way more
>   explicit than referring to a different file.
>   It may even be more of a barrier for simply grabbing and using
>   the code under a possibly incompatible license. It would
>   require removing those comment lines which is a much more
>   concious step than just not noticing the external license
>   file...

There are two things here.  A legal question, where my legal advice is
that it's no different.  I'm not qualified to comment.

But as a courtesy to my fellow coders, I think a one-line reminder is
useful (especially for CCAN, where we encourage people to take bits of
the code).

> And if disk space is not your main concern, Rusty, as I already wrote
> in a different mail, I use folds in my editor for the comment blocks
> to stay out of my sight while coding.

Sure, but I'm not doing this for myself, but for other coders who come
along and I want to read the code.

I'm genuinely seeking advice, both for Samba and abusing this list for
CCAN advice ;)

Thanks!
Rusty.