coin-or
Eliminate AUTHORS file
In https://github.com/coin-or/CoinUtils/pull/161, I removed the AUTHORS file from CoinUtils because it was not being regularly updated, and the authoritative list of authors was linked in the README (i.e. linked back to Github). I'd like to propose a similar step here. The AUTHORS file only contains 5 names, but I see more than 20 contributors listed on Github. A manually managed text file will never contain the most up-to-date information about project contributors, and should be removed in my opinion.
If we want to more prominently credit the contributors in the readme, there exists ample tooling to do so: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors
I think the main reason the AUTHORS file is there to begin with and why it has persisted is because of GNU standards, which may be enforced in packaging for Linux distros. I believe some distros at least used to require an AUTHORS file. From some quick Googling, it wasn't clear to me whether this is really an issue or still the case or not.
There may also be a difference between authors and contributors. According to this
https://opensource.google/docs/releasing/authors/
authors are basically the original developers who are the most significant contributors over time. This list generally would not actually change. But I don't think this file would be the place to recognize such people anyway if giving credits is the reason. I'm in favor of eliminating the file if we determine this is not an issue for packaging of the project. At the same time, we could think about adding some attribution to the README or auto-generating a list of contributors (perhaps ordered in some way).
Thanks for the link! I can't believe I've been working in this industry this long and had no idea about this.
I'm not sure what right answer is. My intent with opening this issue was to spur a discussion about the best way to recognize contributions, while also ensuring that project ownership information is kept up-to-date.
Though for the record, both you @tkralphs and @svigerske are amoung the top contributors to this repository, but neither of you is listed in AUTHORS :shrug: