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How to Maintain Copyright Years for GNU Emacs


Principle: Individual files need to have the year of the release
           in the copyright notice if there is significant change.


Practice:

- individual files
  - each must be examined, along w/ its history, by a human
  - automated tools facilitate but can never replace this process

- year of the release
  - may be different from year of file introduction,
    or year of last significant change
  - sometimes the release year slips, leaving a file w/ prematurely
    marked release year => need update (e.g., s/2004/2005/ for Emacs 22)
  - intervening years (between releases) are not valid and may cause
    embarrassment later in case of dispute => remove (however, see next)
  - years for new files (merged, contributed) that have been separately
    published are valid even if between releases => leave alone

- significant change
  - insignificant
    - whitespace
    - copyright notice
    - version control tags
    - simple var/func renaming
    - in-file reorganization/reordering
    - typos
    - small bugfixes
    - small docfixes
    - filename renaming
  - most everything else is significant
    - change to interface
    - change in functionality
    - new file
  - many small changes may be significant in aggregate

- when in doubt, ask (and update these guidelines -- thanks!)

- sometimes people make mistakes
  - if they have not read these guidelines, point them here
  - if the guidelines are not helpful, improve the guidelines