Arguments about the credits

Arantor

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Arguments about the credits
« on August 16th, 2013, 03:07 AM »
This is petty but I'm frustrated, having just been part of an argument about the SMF credits.

They're already messed up and in 2.1 they're actually likely to get worse. Right now, for example, the plan is to have the current team up first, followed by everyone else as 'Friends', followed by Github contributors and stuff like that.

Now, I think it's nice they're actually getting Github contributors. I also understand there are a number of people who don't want even the Github contributors credited. There's nothing better than that for 'we'll take your commits but fuck you for wanting some credit to them'.

But the bit that's getting me frustrated is the absolute inability of some people to understand why lumping all the Friends together is actually fucked up.

Let me put this straight, and I'll try to use small words so everyone understands me.

1. SMF is a software project. Without the developers developing it, there would be no SMF.
2. If there is no SMF, there is no need for support, customizers, translators etc.
3. The only conclusion I can then draw from this is that developers are actually necessary to the project in a way that other roles aren't.
4. Support, Customizers, Translators are all important. But they, by necessity, must come second to developers because without developers, there's nothing to support, nothing to customize, nothing to translate.

Assuming we agree on the above:
a) Developers' contributions do not stop being important just because they left the team. There are still bits of the original SMF 1.0 (and, while we're at it, elements from YaBB) still in 2.0 and even in 2.1.
b) The current developers, as fine a people as they are, did not write 95% of SMF's code, because of the above.
c) Why, then, are the current developers considered as rock stars compared to the 'Friends' who are no more important than anyone else despite the fact that some of the Friends actually wrote the damn software?

It seems very simple to me: anyone who actually contributed code to SMF, i.e. those who MADE SMF need a higher billing than the people who support it etc.

In case anyone thinks this is about my getting my name higher up... no. I never made the dev team for various reasons. My code contributions are small enough that I don't personally consider them important enough to be considered a developer. I have no qualms with, then, remaining in the Friends list, provided that the people who actually made SMF get a slightly higher billing - after all, they're the ones who made it, and if SMF hadn't been made, I wouldn't have had anything to contribute.

And yet this mindset is still rife in SMF, that developers are not any more important than anyone else. Yes, that's right... in a project based around a piece of software, the people who make the software are not particularly important.

Imagine if that applied to other industries. Imagine if we told book authors, that suddenly they have to credit the publisher as being as important in the book's making as themselves. Now, books have the author in big letters on the front, and the publisher's logo on there too but when was the last time you saw the publisher receiving equal prominence to the author? What about the typesetters? The proof readers? The author's best friend who proof-read an early script? The author's partner who gave them moral support? By SMF's definition, we should be giving all these people equal credit to the author, regardless of anything else.

Apparently I appear to be in the minority of people who understand this. It's sad really, especially in light of other recent events where for one brief shining moment I was considering helping with SMF core development.
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Kindred

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Re: Arguments about the credits
« Reply #1, on August 16th, 2013, 03:35 AM »
Actually, I partially agree with you....

I think that we should list the developers who were in developer positions during the release cycle and then list all other, former developers and other code contributors as "contributors"... because while they did contribute, and should be recognized for it, they are no longer active developers on the project. (and this can include github contributors or we can separate them as they are

then list the team and the other folks like beta testers, language contributors, etc.

I also believe that siloing the team should be done away with.

List the developers and the former developers or contributors
then the current team (just as team not subdivided)
then former team and/or friends
then language, beta, etc etc etc

Arantor

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Re: Arguments about the credits
« Reply #2, on August 16th, 2013, 04:47 AM »
Quote
I think that we should list the developers who were in developer positions during the release cycle and then list all other, former developers and other code contributors as "contributors"... because while they did contribute, and should be recognized for it, they are no longer active developers on the project. (and this can include github contributors or we can separate them as they are
I sort of agree with that and I sort of don't. It is a much better representation of what happened, yes. On the other hand, there is an argument (though not a very good one) that it could downplay the relevance of contributions (e.g. original contributions vs minor changes)... but as I said it's a poor argument.

Siloing the team is a problem and has been a problem for some years. It was a problem back when I was on the team, that people have their place and their title dictates their role. This hasn't exactly changed.

Breaking down the siloing in the credits would encourage cross-specialism participation.

I'd be quite happy with the proposal as given.

runic

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Nao

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Re: Arguments about the credits
« Reply #4, on August 16th, 2013, 07:42 AM »
Some people are credited multiple times.

And where's my developer credit?  :P

runic

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Re: Arguments about the credits
« Reply #5, on August 16th, 2013, 12:33 PM »
Well yeh, all git contributos got listed and all former devs, and yours is there cant you see it?

TBH did it at 5am and had to really get to bed so I prob missed a few :P

Re: Arguments about the credits
« Reply #6, on August 16th, 2013, 12:50 PM »
I make a distinction between the people that made the software and people that worked on the project.
Therefore I think that foremost in the credits page inside the software those people should be mentioned that worked on the software package.
That is: the developers and software contributors.
I'm not sure about translators. Surely, they contributed to the software package, but I don't believe in given credits to a person that translated to, lets say French, while in the installed software only English is used.
Credits for a language file is probably best given inside the language file.

There could be a second part where the people that are and where involved in the SMF project get credits.
Personally I believe it's better to keep this part on the simple machines website and put a few lines in the credits page that states that there are and where many more people involved in the total project and put a link to that credits page on the Simple Machines website.
This way the credits page stay's small, on SM there is enough room to mention everybody and  everything and it can easily be kept up to date.

I hope that despite my poor knowledge of English my story/idea is clear.

Nao

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Re: Arguments about the credits
« Reply #7, on August 16th, 2013, 05:00 PM »
That's how Wedge does it; switch to French, go to Credits, and I'm there as the translator. Switch to British English, and there you go, Pete is credited. Switch to proper regular dumb US English, and no credits, because it's a collaborative work, right..? ;)

@runic, I was credited as Friend by your first commit (from my original Consulting Developer), but you fixed it, so I'm all good.

My idea is that, generally, software should have the complete list of developers over time, and then additionally, show the 'active' developers in a separate list. We don't have this problem at Wedge right now, because basically there's only Pete and I, and then our contributors (John, Shitiz) and occasional contributors (Aaron, TE...), and they're all credited as consultants, so it's fine for now...

Arantor

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Re: Arguments about the credits
« Reply #8, on August 16th, 2013, 05:07 PM »
Eh, I still think the contributors file is the way to go here... it's still a WIP but...

Code: [Select]
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMND8O$$$ZODNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMN87???????????????7DMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMN8$????????????????????????$NMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM87???????????????????????????????ZMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM7??????????????????????????????????????OMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNDOZ7I??????????????????IOMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM8Z????????????????MMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMDZ7???????????$MMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMDO$7777777$$ZODNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMZ?+?????????ZMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMNI=======================+?7O8NMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNZI????????DMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMN+===============================+7ZNMMMMMMMMMMMMM8I???????8MMMMMM
MMMMMMMZ=======================================IZNMMMMMMMMMMMD$?????MMMMMM
MMMMMN7=============================================ONMMMMMMMMMDI???$MMMMM
MMMMN?=================================================+7NMMMMMMMMZI?$MMMM
MMMM?===================++??I7$ZOOOO888OOZ$$7I?+++========+$NMMMMMMM7+ZMMM
MMMM===========I7Z8NMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNDO$?====?MMMMMMMONMM
MMMZ===++78NMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMN8??DMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
(ASCII rendition courtesy GlassGiant.com)

Wedge is a modern forum system built in PHP and MySQL.

Wedge Developers: Nao 尚 (René-Gilles Deberdt)
Arantor (Peter Spicer)

Contributions: Dragooon (Shitiz Garg)
live627 (John Rayes)
TE (Thorsten Eurich)


Wedge contains code and elements from other products, in no particular order:

== Code ==

Simple Machines Forum 2.0.x
-- © Simple Machines and its contributors 2011, http://www.simplemachines.org/
-- used under the Modified BSD license.

Bad Behaviour 2.1.x
-- © Michael Hampton 2011, http://bad-behavior.ioerror.us/
-- used under the LGPL v3 license, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html under 4) as a Combined Work
-- 4a: notice here given.
-- 4b: a copy of the LGPL and GPL text is not bundled to discourage misrepresentation of overall license terms.
-- 4c: the credits page indicates Bad Behaviour's use.
-- 4d0: the Minimal Corresponding Source is available upon request however in isolation will be of little practical use due to intra-application dependencies.
-- 4e: not applicable.

WeNotif
-- © Shitiz Garg 2012, [url]https://github.com/Dragooon/WeNotif[/url]
-- used under the Modified BSD license.

Move Notifier
-- © John Reyes 2013
-- used under the Modified BSD license.

MultiAttach (multiple attachment selector)
-- © The-Stickman.com 2005, http://the-stickman.com/web-development/javascript/upload-multiple-files-with-a-single-file-element/
-- used under the MIT license, http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php

jQuery nestedSortable
-- © Manuele J Sarfatti 2010-2013, [url]https://github.com/mjsarfatti/nestedSortable[/url]
-- used under the MIT license, http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php

getID3 (media file information)
-- © James Heinrich 2013, http://getid3.org/
-- used under the MPLv2

Exifer (originally Exifixer; extracts EXIF information from digital photos)
-- © Jake Olefsky 2005, http://www.offsky.com/software/exif/index.php ; Zenphoto 2013, [url]https://github.com/zenphoto/zenphoto/blob/master/zp-core/exif/[/url]
-- used under the GPLv2

JW Player 4.4.157 (media playback)
-- © Long Tail Video 2013, http://www.longtailvideo.com/jw-player/
-- free version, suitable only for non-commercial sites - for commercial sites, contact LongTail Video, or disable use of video/audio in the media gallery.

Yahoo UI Uploader (Flash/AJAX mass uploader)
-- © Yahoo! Inc., 2006-2013, http://yuilibrary.com/
-- used under the Modified BSD license

FancyUpload (mass uploader progress bars)
-- © Harald Kirschner 2008-2009, http://digitarald.de/project/fancyupload/
-- used under the MIT license

== Images ==

FamFamFam Flags, FamFamFam Silk icons
-- © Mark James 2005, http://famfamfam.com/
-- Silk used under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Diagona, Fugue
-- © Yusuke Kamiyamane 2013, http://p.yusukekamiyamane.com/
-- used under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Crystal Clear
-- © Crystal Project 2001-2012, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Clear
-- used under the LGPLv3, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html
-- no code linkage, some images renamed

It's not practical nor entirely reasonable for us as a separate project to list everyone who worked on SMF - but we do note that it had other contributors who weren't/aren't necessarily team (i.e. SMF "and its contributors")

* Arantor is aware we have a couple of licence issues to deal with still...

Dragooon

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The way it's meant to be

Arantor

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Re: Arguments about the credits
« Reply #10, on August 16th, 2013, 05:21 PM »
The base distribution uses it for multiple attachment uploading, since we still haven't integrated your AJAX drag 'n' drop file uploading into the core.

Dragooon

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Arantor

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emanuele

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