Keeping copyright notices up to date

Keeping copyright notices up to date

[Mark Harig]

1. There are a number of Guile's files that have invalid copyright
notices because their years are listed as ranges, which is not
allowed, for example, the files guile/GNUmakefile and
guile/maint.mk.  The year range should be deleted and replaced
with a comma-separated list of years.

2. Have all files that have been changed had their copyright years
updated?  Emacs can be told to check for the year of the
copyright notice and will prompt the user when a file has been
changed in a year that is not included in the copyright notice.
One way to activate this feature is to add the following to your
Emacs initialization file:

   (add-hook 'before-save-hook 'copyright-update)

Then, each time a file that includes the string "Copyright (C)..."
is modified, the list of years will be checked to see if the current
year is included in the list.  If the current year is not listed, then
the Emacs user will be asked whether they want it added.  If
the user answers "yes", then a comma, a space, and the four
digits of the current year will be added to the copyright line.

According to the Emacs file NEWS.22, this feature for checking
and updating the copyright each time a file is saved has been
available since Emacs version 22.1, so any version after that
can use it.

Here is a description from the Info node "(texinfo) copying"
of the requirements for the format and content of the copyright
notice:

"The copyright notice itself has the following legally defined sequence:

     Copyright (C) YEARS COPYRIGHT-OWNER.

  The word `Copyright' must always be written in English, even if the
document is otherwise written in another language.  This is due to
international law.

  The list of years should include all years in which a version was
completed (even if it was released in a subsequent year).  Ranges are
not allowed; each year must be written out individually and in full,
separated by commas."

--

Re: Keeping copyright notices up to date

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Mark,

Mark Harig <idirectscm@aim.com> writes:

> 1. There are a number of Guile's files that have invalid copyright
> notices because their years are listed as ranges, which is not
> allowed, for example, the files guile/GNUmakefile and
> guile/maint.mk.  The year range should be deleted and replaced
> with a comma-separated list of years.

These two files are from Gnulib.  A recent addition to the Maintainers
Guide allows the use of ranges provided README explains what the range
means (info "(maintain) Copyright Notices").  We don’t do that, but OTOH
these files are imported.

Would you like to raise this issue on bug-gnulib@gnu.org?

>   (add-hook 'before-save-hook 'copyright-update)

Most or all committers do that, I think.

If you find any specific problems, please let us know.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: Keeping copyright notices up to date

[Mark Harig]

On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 11:37:04PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>
> > 1. There are a number of Guile's files that have invalid copyright
> > notices because their years are listed as ranges, which is not
> > allowed, for example, the files guile/GNUmakefile and
> > guile/maint.mk.  The year range should be deleted and replaced
> > with a comma-separated list of years.
>

I listed these two files only as examples of ones that use
ranges.  I wasn't trying to point them out specifically.  I
did a quick search and found at least 193 files that use
ranges of years in the copyright line in the 'guile'
directory tree that is included in the repository.

> These two files are from Gnulib.  A recent addition to the Maintainers
> Guide allows the use of ranges provided README explains what the range
> means (info "(maintain) Copyright Notices").  We don’t do that, but 
OTOH
> these files are imported.
>

Thank you.  I do not have the GNU 'maintain' package
installed.  It is more detailed than the 'texinfo'
description of copyright requirements (and slightly
contradictory).

It includes this instruction:

   "You can use a range (‘2008-2010’) instead of listing
    individual years (‘2008, 2009, 2010’) if and only if: 1)
    every year in the range, inclusive, really is a
    “copyrightable” year that would be listed individually;
    and 2) you make an explicit statement in a ‘README’ file
    about this usage."

http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Copyright-Notices.html#Copyright-Notices

> Would you like to raise this issue on bug-gnulib@gnu.org?
>

Not at this time.  You are aware of the use of ranges and
have a solution for it.

--

Re: Keeping copyright notices up to date

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Mark Harig <idirectscm@aim.com> writes:

> On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 11:37:04PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>>
>> > 1. There are a number of Guile's files that have invalid copyright
>> > notices because their years are listed as ranges, which is not
>> > allowed, for example, the files guile/GNUmakefile and
>> > guile/maint.mk.  The year range should be deleted and replaced
>> > with a comma-separated list of years.
>>
>
> I listed these two files only as examples of ones that use
> ranges.  I wasn't trying to point them out specifically.  I
> did a quick search and found at least 193 files that use
> ranges of years in the copyright line in the 'guile'
> directory tree that is included in the repository.

Understood.

What I meant to say is that files under ‘lib’ are actually imported from
Gnulib, and thus under Gnulib’s control.  I don’t think Guile’s code
itself uses ranges, but I’ll check.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: Keeping copyright notices up to date

[Andy Wingo]

On Mon 17 Jan 2011 23:37, ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> A recent addition to the Maintainers Guide allows the use of ranges
> provided README explains what the range means (info "(maintain)
> Copyright Notices").  We don’t do that, but OTOH these files are
> imported.

I did add such a statement.  There was a thread discussing this issue
here:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2011-01/msg00025.html

Cheers,

Andy
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