Re: Ancient Contributors page

On Jun 10, 2026, at 1:11=E2=80=AFPM, Rich Bowen <[email protected]> =
wrote:
>=20
> Since the late 1900s, we have had this page - =
https://httpd.apache.org/contributors/ - that listed contributors to the =
project. It was brought to my attention today that most of the links on =
that page were dead and/or pointed to sites no longer actually owned by =
the person referenced. It also contained dozens of email addresses for =
people who are now assuredly in every spam database ever.
>=20
> I=E2=80=99ve done some cleanup.
>=20
> If you are an httpd committer, you can edit (or add, or remove) your =
record on that page.
>=20
> It=E2=80=99s an interesting historical artifact, but it=E2=80=99s far =
from complete, and many of the remaining entries list long-past =
employers. Not harmful, per se, but also not terribly valuable for =
anything other than being a historical artifact.
>=20
> What do folks think about keeping this, going forward?
>=20

I think we do a poor job of documenting contributions. This page was an =
exercise in
self-documentation, which failed miserably. Using a link to the github =
commits would
be even worse (#commits !=3D #contributions, especially in a code base =
that predates cvs).

The ABOUT_APACHE file was the original project compromise on =
attribution, but that became
a historical artifact as soon as I wrote it. The intent was to update it =
over time
to reflect the current group of maintainers above the history portion. =
Instead, the historical
artifact remained fixed and the newer (at the time) bits relegated to =
this old CGI-generated page.

I would prefer to document the major contributors in a CREDITS file in =
source, remove the database,
and link to the ABOUT_APACHE history on the website. But I don't know if =
it's possible to do that
without offending someone. I also haven't edited the website since it =
was moved to XML automation;
apparently that was just enough of a barrier to prevent any further =
contributions (odd given
that most of my IETF work was also in XML). I suffer from =
inscrutablescriptaphopia.

....Roy