comparison admin/notes/years @ 75251:f3a5f0fb3297

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75250:6d19c76d81c5

How to Maintain Copyright Years for GNU Emacs


"Our lawyer says it is ok if we add, to each file that has been in Emacs
 since Emacs 21 came out in 2001, all the subsequent years.  We don't
 need to check whether *that file* was changed in those years.
 It's sufficient that *Emacs* was changed in those years (and it was!).

 For those files that have been added since then, we should add
 the year it was added to Emacs, and all subsequent years."

 --RMS, 2005-07-13


For the refcards under etc/, it's ok to simply use the latest year
(typically in a `\def\year{YEAR}' expression) for the rendered copyright
notice, while maintaining the full list of years in the copyright notice
in the comments.


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75251:f3a5f0fb3297

How to Maintain Copyright Years for GNU Emacs


"Our lawyer says it is ok if we add, to each file that has been in Emacs
 since Emacs 21 came out in 2001, all the subsequent years[1].  We don't
 need to check whether *that file* was changed in those years.
 It's sufficient that *Emacs* was changed in those years (and it was!).

 For those files that have been added since then, we should add
 the year it was added to Emacs, and all subsequent years."

 --RMS, 2005-07-13

[1] Note that this includes 2001 - see
<http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-pretest-bug/2006-12/msg00119.html>


For the refcards under etc/, it's ok to simply use the latest year
(typically in a `\def\year{YEAR}' expression) for the rendered copyright
notice, while maintaining the full list of years in the copyright notice
in the comments.


Please fix or report any non-trivial files that have "odd" copyright
notices.  This includes missing copyright notices, and copyright
holders other than FSF (or AIST in some cases).  In most cases,
individual authors should not appear in copyright statements.  Either
the copyright has been assigned (check copyright.list) to the FSF (in
which case the original author should be removed and the year(s)
transferred to the FSF); or else it is possible the file should not be
in Emacs at all (please report!).


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