Remove __author__, __credits__ and __copyright__ from stdlib modules

Core Development
1

Around twenty stdlib modules, including json, io, inspect, and tarfile, still set __author__, __credits__ or __copyright__ attributes, mostly left over from when the modules were first added.

$ git grep -E "__(author|credits|copyright)__"
Lib/bz2.py:__author__ = "Nadeem Vawda <nadeem.vawda@gmail.com>"
Lib/concurrent/futures/__init__.py:__author__ = 'Brian Quinlan (brian@sweetapp.com)'
Lib/concurrent/futures/__init__.py:    return __all__ + ['__author__', '__doc__']
Lib/concurrent/futures/_base.py:__author__ = 'Brian Quinlan (brian@sweetapp.com)'
Lib/concurrent/futures/process.py:__author__ = 'Brian Quinlan (brian@sweetapp.com)'
Lib/concurrent/futures/thread.py:__author__ = 'Brian Quinlan (brian@sweetapp.com)'
Lib/ctypes/_aix.py:__author__ = "Michael Felt <aixtools@felt.demon.nl>"
Lib/inspect.py:__author__ = ('Ka-Ping Yee <ping@lfw.org>',
Lib/io.py:__author__ = ("Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org>, "
Lib/json/__init__.py:__author__ = 'Bob Ippolito <bob@redivi.com>'
Lib/logging/__init__.py:__author__  = "Vinay Sajip <vinay_sajip@red-dove.com>"
Lib/optparse.py:__copyright__ = """
Lib/platform.py:__copyright__ = """
Lib/pydoc.py:__author__ = "Ka-Ping Yee <ping@lfw.org>"
Lib/pydoc.py:__credits__ = """Guido van Rossum, for an excellent programming language.
[...]
Lib/tarfile.py:__author__  = "Lars Gust\u00e4bel (lars@gustaebel.de)"
Lib/tarfile.py:__credits__ = "Gustavo Niemeyer, Niels Gust\u00e4bel, Richard Townsend."
[...]
Lib/tkinter/ttk.py:__author__ = "Guilherme Polo <ggpolo@gmail.com>"
Lib/tokenize.py:__author__ = 'Ka-Ping Yee <ping@lfw.org>'
Lib/tokenize.py:__credits__ = ('GvR, ESR, Tim Peters, Thomas Wouters, Fred Drake, '
Lib/uuid.py:__author__ = 'Ka-Ping Yee <ping@zesty.ca>'
[...]

Like the __version__ attributes we deprecated and scheduled for removal in python/cpython#76007, these are outdated and potentially misleading. They don’t reflect who has maintained the code since, and that history is already recorded in git. They can also suggest that a module belongs to one person rather than to the community, similar to why we removed author notes from the documentation in python/cpython#145002.

These concerns were also raised back in 2001, when the first such attributes were added, although they were ultimately kept. Python has grown quite a bit since then. inspect, for example, lists two people in __author__s, while many more people have worked on the module:

$ git shortlog -sn -- Lib/inspect.py | wc -l
125

I propose that we deprecate these attributes, as we did with __version__, using a module __getattr__, and remove them after the usual deprecation period. Copyright notices that are actually required for licensing could remain in the source as comments.

Are there any objections to this, or any modules where these attributes still serve a real purpose?

1 Like
2

If we remove these variables, I would also suggest moving original authors to the module comment or docstring.

I don’t expect that these variables are read (or even modified) by any project. A code search can tell us more on how they are used (if they are used). Well, we can go through a deprecation process if needed.

3

I’m not convinced we need to keep the names at all, but if we do keep them in a comment or docstring, we should be very clear that they are the original author, this is only of historical interest, and the module is owned and maintained by the entire core team. I know that sounds cumbersome. I would be in favor of removing the names entirely.

We have source control that accurately records the history for those who care.

3 Likes
4

Not always: ancient version control systems recorded the committer, not the author.

Unless you double-check that the Git history isn’t misleading, please replace these with “original author” or “credits” comments.

5

Not always: ancient version control systems recorded the committer, not the author.

Indeed, however, in most cases (that is, all of the modules I checked, about ~75%) we either have the __author__ as the commiter, or explicitly list them in the commit message. For example, uuid and logging:

$ git show --no-patch f9eb82f2520058c60d63e5f4faa13f8471d391c3
commit f9eb82f2520058c60d63e5f4faa13f8471d391c3
Author: Ka-Ping Yee <ping@zesty.ca>
Date:   Mon Jun 12 23:47:52 2006 +0000

    Add the uuid module.
    
    This module has been tested so far on Windows XP (Python 2.4 and 2.5a2),
    Mac OS X (Python 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5a2), and Linux (Python 2.4 and 2.5a2).
$ git show --no-patch 57102f861d506b6c2d2215d100dac9143574fa77
commit 57102f861d506b6c2d2215d100dac9143574fa77
Author: Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org>
Date:   Wed Nov 13 16:15:58 2002 +0000

    Adding Vinay Sajip's logging package.

(This does get slightly more complicated with tokenize, where the __author__ is for the author of a re-write, rather than the original implementation.)

However, if the Git history is misleading for some modules, while I don’t love it, I think adding a (clear) comment is fine.