[yt-dev] License switch: remove author tags

[Matthew Turk]

On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 4:29 PM, Nathan Goldbaum <nathan12343 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Matt,
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 1:23 PM, Matthew Turk <matthewturk at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I am +1 on removing the author tags.  That being said, I consciously
>> decided *not* to, for basically two reasons which are somewhat
>> related.  The first is that I think removing the author tags will
>> disproportionately impact individuals who perhaps have contributed
>> specific files or analysis modules but have not contributed a large
>> quantity of code to the overall base of yt.  The second reason is
>> really my main one: I don't want to be as strongly associated with yt
>> as I currently am.  Not because I don't have pride in it (I do), but
>> because I don't want people who aren't deep in the code development to
>> believe that I'm the only person contributing, and I do not think that
>> does favors for *anyone*.  (I still receive many emails off-list,
>> people say things to me that I have to correct about what yt is, etc
>> etc.)  It creates an impression of consolidation of responsibility, as
>> well as undermines the credit that others receive for their
>> contributions.  Having names (that aren't mine) on source files
>> reduces the apparent consolidation.  I was leery of making such a
>> change, because removing names felt really wrong to me to do on my
>> own.
>>
>
> I'd argue that the yt = matt turk misconception is made worse by the author
> tags, since your name is on almost every file.

Then let's get rid of them.

>
>>
>> So, I'm fine with removing them if everyone else is too.  But I'd also
>> like to trade this for having some type of mechanism for public
>> recognition of efforts.  (In addition to another paper, which is
>> probably still a bit off.)  Perhaps something like a core team, or
>> list of contributors, on the website?  Something that can be pointed
>> to, put on a CV, anything.
>
>
> Very much agreed.  I'd follow what the IPython project does, a list of core
> contributors on the website and list of *all* contributors for each release:
>
> http://ipython.org/ipython-doc/stable/about/license_and_copyright.html
> http://ipython.org/ipython-doc/stable/whatsnew/github-stats-1.0.html

I like this a lot.

I've mentioned in IRC a few times that I'd like to re-do the homepage.
 If anyone wants to work on that, I'd be totally game.  I think having
something based on bootstrap with the "slate" theme might be nice; I
started sketching out something the other day.  One option would be to
move the *entire* homepage to Sphinx and just have a nice template for
the front page, similar to what IPython and others do.

>
> Cheers,
>
> Nathan
>
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