Giving credit for committed patches
I'm about to talk about a potentially sensitive subject. I will try to approach this delicately by first saying this is not an attach or criticism, just a suggestion for improvement. It is not my intention to start a flame war as has been suggested. So with that out tof the way, I was noticing the other day that Dries gives credit to patch contributors in the cvs log message. I think this is smart. And I think an attempt should be made, where practical, to do it for all patches. First, it helps build the reputation of those who contribute, garnering them the good will of the community, second it strokes their ego. As far as building the reputation of contributors, I think we all recognize that this is an extremely important facet of open source development. For most of us, our reputation within the Drupal community is dependent upon the letters in our respective handles. When I see the letters m-e-r-l-i-n-o-f-c-h-a-o-s I think happy thoughts. He's helped me tremendously and I can him credit because the things he has done for me have come from those mysterious arrangement of letters. And I have done what I can to reward him for his efforts. So I think when we give credit to contributors and build their reputation, it spreads good will. And it puts a human face to the code many labor so hard on. Second, let's just all admit right now we have egos. I'll be the first to say that, yup, I have one. No, I don't work soley for recognition and praise from others. Just the challenge of programming and and building web sites for worthwhile cause provides enough self-fulfillment to sustain me. That said, it sure does feel good when I get some recognition. When my first bug fix patch hit the Drupal core, I feld some accomplishment. And when I saw my name associated with that patch, I was quite proud and got a little high from it. It was the first open source project I was able to contribute to. On the other hand, I also feel a bit sleighted when I contriubute some time or talent to a project (on any endeavor, not just Drupal), and no one takes the the time to say "thanks". That doesn't mean I stop doing the work, but it does mean that I'm less motivated to do something next time. Maybe I'm an anomaly and I'm just a big egotistical asshole. But I suspect I'm just like any other person and simply like getting recognition, no matter how small. So, my suggestion is to simply make more of attempt to give credit to those who contributed their time and talent in the cvs log messages. I think the effort expended to do that is minimal (maybe Dries can better respond to this point) and well worth the effort by fostering more good will and good vibes in the development community.
participants (1)
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Steve Dondley