An update from last weeks meeting on providing headers for IP review process.
I have the outlines of a script here:
These scripts extract file creation, modification and initial author into a CSV file (which you can review in Excel). The second script punts in header boiler plate on the top of each file.
I am still not certain if this will be enough for the IP review, but on the other hand it is all we have and am all we are going to get.
Rant: A while back the (under the influence of an article on good open source practice) we abandoned both @author tags and listing authors in the header. The downside of providing author information is that people feel like files have owners. This discourages involvement (introduces concepts like asking permission) and prevents participants from feeling part of the project as a whole (fred wrote that he will have to fix it). The broader context is that this information was much better managed by revision control which ends up being used in a court of law anyway). We have a policy of using tools rather than volunteer effort whenever possible (think JUnit + automatic builds to yell at developers for breaking API contact - much less intrusive then angry emails on a devel list).
TLDR: I do not expect the IP team can continue to expect file history to be nicely packaged for review at the header level. If maintaining historic context is needed for legal purposes we have "an app for that" called version control.
Finally: I have been submitting a few CQ tickets that are sitting idle waiting for PMC +1. They are all small things like using a jquery.js in the projects documentation. I think until we get a hang of checking IPZilla we are best served by sending an email to the list here.
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