Authors scan in testfiles finds holder although it should not

[nakami]

test_authors.py (scancode-toolkit/tests/cluecode/test_authors.py) expects author_young_c-c.c (scancode-toolkit/tests/cluecode/data/authors/author_young_c-c.c) to have four author hits.

Two apply for Tim Hudson whereas the first one should be only found by the holders scan and not the authors scan.

author_young_c-c.c:

12 * lhash, DES, etc., code; not just the SSL code.  The SSL documentation
13 * included with this distribution is covered by the same copyright terms
14 * except that the holder is Tim Hudson (tjh@mincom.oz.au).

test_authors.py:

221    def test_author_young_c(self):
222        test_file = self.get_test_loc('authors/author_young_c-c.c')
223        expected = [
224            u'written by Eric Young (eay@mincom.oz.au).',
225            u'Tim Hudson (tjh@mincom.oz.au).',
226            u'written by Eric Young (eay@mincom.oz.au)',
227            u'written by Tim Hudson (tjh@mincom.oz.au)',
228        ]
229        check_detection(expected, test_file, what='authors')

Correct me if I'm wrong.

For clarity, I did not run the tests myself, just compared the source and the expected hits in test_authors.py.

[pombredanne]

@nakami this is a tough one.
Holders are detected as part of a copyright statement: https://github.com/nexB/scancode-toolkit/blob/c7f808cce1e9a46fe83c529c8cb789dbc57af958/src/cluecode/copyrights.py#L717

Authors on the other hand are detected on their own: https://github.com/nexB/scancode-toolkit/blob/c7f808cce1e9a46fe83c529c8cb789dbc57af958/src/cluecode/copyrights.py#L437

So since holder is Tim Hudson (tjh@mincom.oz.au) is not a proper copyright statement it would not be reported as a holder. But what could be done is to report that as an author?

Now the relation question is also: is this the holder is <Tim Hudson or someone else> a common occurrence and if so does it ever happen in a file where there would not be a copyright for the same person too?

[pombredanne]

actually not a tough one. Just needs some thinking