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21ac0f63 GM |
1 | HOW TO MAINTAIN COPYRIGHT YEARS FOR GNU EMACS |
2 | ||
3 | Maintaining copyright years is now very simple: every time a new year | |
6bbd9b32 | 4 | rolls around, add that year to every FSF (and AIST) copyright notice. |
9ebada6a | 5 | Do this by running the 'admin/update-copyright' script on a fresh bzr |
1f69299c | 6 | checkout. Inspect the results for plausibility, then commit them. |
21ac0f63 GM |
7 | |
8 | There's no need to worry about whether an individual file has changed | |
9 | in a given year - it's sufficient that Emacs as a whole has changed. | |
10 | ||
f74c8aeb GM |
11 | Therefore the years are updated en-masse near the start of each year, |
12 | so basically there is no need for most people to do any updating of them. | |
13 | ||
14 | The current (in 2011) version of "Information for Maintainers of GNU | |
15 | Software" (see that document for more details) says that it is OK to use | |
16 | ranges in copyright years, so in early 2011 the years were changed to use | |
17 | ranges, which occupy less space and do not grow in length every year. | |
18 | ||
21ac0f63 GM |
19 | For more detailed information on maintaining copyright, see the file |
20 | "copyright" in this directory. | |
21 | ||
22 | The previous policy was more complex, but is now only of historical | |
23 | interest (see versions of this file from before 2009). | |
24 | ||
25 | The refcards in etc/refcards can print only the latest copyright year, | |
26 | but should keep the full list in a comment in the source. | |
27 | ||
a85732e6 | 28 | |
d0278ce8 | 29 | "Our lawyer says it is ok if we add, to each file that has been in Emacs |
631e2c0f | 30 | since Emacs 21 came out in 2001, all the subsequent years[1]. We don't |
d0278ce8 TTN |
31 | need to check whether *that file* was changed in those years. |
32 | It's sufficient that *Emacs* was changed in those years (and it was!). | |
9ebada6a | 33 | |
d0278ce8 TTN |
34 | For those files that have been added since then, we should add |
35 | the year it was added to Emacs, and all subsequent years." | |
9ebada6a | 36 | |
d0278ce8 | 37 | --RMS, 2005-07-13 |
a85732e6 | 38 | |
631e2c0f GM |
39 | [1] Note that this includes 2001 - see |
40 | <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-pretest-bug/2006-12/msg00119.html> |