[gpm] What is going on with GPM sources/copyright?

[Dmitry Torokhov]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 08:35:44PM +0100, Nico Schottelius wrote:
> Dear Dimitry,
> 
> Dmitry Torokhov [Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 09:42:39AM -0800]:
> > [Resending as mailing list appears to be closed for non-subscribers.]
> 
> Too much spam, sorry.
> 
> > After a few years I happen to take a look at GPM sources and the only words
> > that came to my mind is "WTF?". What is the point of all this code
> > shuffling? Is it some uber cool programming technique that requires splitting
> > _every_ function into a separate source file?
> 
> Well, it's part of the fight against thousands of lines within one file.
> You can argue for files with similar content, but the current source just
> grew too big.
> 

There is name for it, and it is not "similar content" but rather
functionally complete modules. IOW producing 3 files selection_copy.c,
selection_paste.c, do_selection.c and disable_paste.c contraining
functions with the respecive names is brain dead but splitting selection
handling code into one separate file with a couple of private (static)
functions and a couple of globals is quite sensible.

> > More importantly, why copyright notices of all former contributors have been
> > stripped off once the code was moved? It is one thing to add your own
> > copyright string (although even that requires the change to be copyrightable
> > and not a mechanical transformation) but claiming sole copyright over
> > entire body of code it something quite different.
> 
> I'm sorry, I somewhere stopped to continue the process of cleaning up.
> My idea was to cleanup the files and re-add the correct copyright after
> being done.

This is quite a novel idea for cleanup - to start with copyright notices!

> 
> > Note that I don't claim to have copyright interest in GPM anymore since
> > all my work has been removed during 1.20.2 -> 1.20.1 rollback. I wonder
> > why, by the way, since it implemented fairly decent and full support of
> > Linux event interface. I suppose Explorer PS/2 emulation from mousedev
> > is good enough but I think we might be dropping mousedev (at least not
> > enable it by default) in not so distant future.
> 
> Well, need to have a look at the current status sometime soon anyway..
> 

You know, I am not holding my breath... Given the amazing progress I
witnessed in last, what, 7 years?

-- 
Dmitry