On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 3:39 AM, Rainer Jung <[email protected]>wrote:
> Hi Henri, > > On 11.01.2014 22:15, Henri Yandell wrote: > > Shouldn't be changing the copyright date until we actually make a > > copyrightable modification to that product. > > Not sure whether the "until we actually make a copyrightable > modification" part is required. The various site pages about the NOTICE > file don't clarify it. The best I could find was > > http://www.apache.org/legal/src-headers.html > > "The top of each NOTICE file should include the following text, suitably > modified to reflect the product name and year(s) of distribution of the > current and past versions of the product:". > > Then there's the legal issue (still open) > > https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LEGAL-51 > > in which you participated and finally a reference to > > http://www.oppedahl.com/copyrights/#notice > > Most of the discussion seems to be about using only one year or a range, > and if only one year whether the first year or the current publication > year. The legal texts cited do not contain the terminology "version" for > software and thus it seems unclear how to apply them. > > Concerning the point in time when to adopt the year (if at all): I got > the impression the whole discussion is only about a release. As long as > the files are only in svn the correct copyright handling is not of big > importance. Now if it is acceptable at the time of a release to use the > copyright notice of the form FirstYear-CurrentYear, then I think it is > fine and helpful to adjust the NOTICE line at the start of a year to > prevent forgetting the adjustment at the time of release. That was my > motivation. > > Of course in the light of LEGAL-51 it might be that the whole adjustment > of Copyright year in unnecessary at all - but the issue is not finally > decided - and it also might be that some future release does not contain > any copyrightable change. I would prefer the risk of using the wrong > (newer) copyright year in this very unlikely case instead of the risk of > forgetting to update NOTICE during the release process. But that's of > course a very personal view. Since I never contributed to taglibs I am > very unfamiliar to the project specific policies and would be fine to > revert if you would prefer that. My main concern is it makes inactive codebases seem alive. ie) extended looks as though there's been code change in the last 5 years instead of only having had code in it in 2009. Similar with RDC. Other than that, I think it's mainly pedantry :) 80 years is so far off that I don't see anyone caring that the copyright to a piece of code here just expired, especially given our licence. It also seems unlikely that there would be any gain in having stated a copyright year as being later than it was; again given our license. Hen
