Re: Copyright years (was Re: help/version patches)

["Chris January" <chris at atomice dot net>]

> >> -   Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Red Hat, Inc.
> >> +   Copyright 1998-2002 Red Hat, Inc.
> > A quick note about changing Copyright years like this... don't do it!
The
> > two are *not* equivalent.
>
> No, but need they be?  The silly comma separated list will get out of
> hand, at some point in the future.  Each release should hold the (c)
> marker that's applicable to that release, why should later releases
> hold markers that are not applicable anyway?
>
> > Ranges are only allowed if development was carried out in that range
> > of years, but a version was completed for release only in the final
> > year of the range.
>
> If you get hold of, say, a 1999 release (tarball, cvs -D checkout),
> you'll see the range
>
>    1998-1999
>
> which will cover the only interesting thing: (c) over 1999 release.
> If you look at a 2002 tarball, you'll see
>
>    1998-2002
Since when have common sense and the law gone together. I would point out
that the GCC team have recently changed all their copyrights from the
incorrect range format to a list of years because this is simply the right
thing to do from a legal point of view. (see
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2002-01/msg01192.html). Yes, the list of
years can become unweidly, but that's irrelevant.

Regards
Chris