admin/notes/years

   1 How to Maintain Copyright Years for GNU Emacs
   2   (see also file "copyright" in this directory)
   3
   4 "Our lawyer says it is ok if we add, to each file that has been in Emacs
   5  since Emacs 21 came out in 2001, all the subsequent years[1].  We don't
   6  need to check whether *that file* was changed in those years.
   7  It's sufficient that *Emacs* was changed in those years (and it was!).
   8
   9  For those files that have been added since then, we should add
  10  the year it was added to Emacs, and all subsequent years."
  11
  12  --RMS, 2005-07-13
  13
  14 [1] Note that this includes 2001 - see
  15 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-pretest-bug/2006-12/msg00119.html>
  16
  17
  18 For the refcards under etc/, it's ok to simply use the latest year
  19 (typically in a `\def\year{YEAR}' expression) for the rendered copyright
  20 notice, while maintaining the full list of years in the copyright notice
  21 in the comments.
  22
  23 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  24
  25
  26 Following is the policy that we tried to write down one time (mid 2005).
  27 Although it is incorrect, we keep it around to remind us how complicated
  28 things used to be (and may become in the future).
  29
  30
  31 Principle: Individual files need to have the year of the release
  32            in the copyright notice if there is significant change.
  33
  34
  35 Practice:
  36
  37 - individual files
  38   - each must be examined, along w/ its history, by a human
  39   - automated tools facilitate but can never replace this process
  40
  41 - year of the release
  42   - may be different from year of file introduction,
  43     or year of last significant change
  44   - sometimes the release year slips, leaving a file w/ prematurely
  45     marked release year => need update (e.g., s/2004/2005/ for Emacs 22)
  46   - intervening years (between releases) are not valid and may cause
  47     embarrassment later in case of dispute => remove (however, see next)
  48   - years for new files (merged, contributed) that have been separately
  49     published are valid even if between releases => leave alone
  50
  51 - significant change
  52   - insignificant
  53     - whitespace
  54     - copyright notice
  55     - version control tags
  56     - simple var/func renaming
  57     - in-file reorganization/reordering
  58     - typos
  59     - small bugfixes
  60     - small docfixes
  61     - filename renaming
  62   - most everything else is significant
  63     - change to interface
  64     - change in functionality
  65     - new file
  66   - many small changes may be significant in aggregate
  67
  68 - when in doubt, ask (and update these guidelines -- thanks!)
  69
  70 - sometimes people make mistakes
  71   - if they have not read these guidelines, point them here
  72   - if the guidelines are not helpful, improve the guidelines