Re: [Bug-gnulib] full-write.c / full-read.c consolidation

[Paul Eggert]

> Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 16:09:06 -0500
> From: address@hidden (Karl Berry)
> 
> However, I don't think it's really worth either rms's, the lawyer's, or
> our time to go back and revisit it again.

A few months ago, I asked my wife about this subject, after finding
conflicting opinions about it on the web.  She is a copyright
attorney.  She looked at me as if I were crazy.  It's not an issue
worth worrying about.  Just follow the attorney's advice.


Here's my own take, for what it's worth.  It's more conservative to
list every year separately.  It's slightly riskier to use a date
range.  This is because the date-range issue has never been litigated,
to the best of my knowledge.

The issue _has_ been litigated of omitting years entirely, and the
copyright-holders lost big time: there have been court cases where
judges have stricken all of the copyright rights in a work due to
incorrect dates in the copyright notice.  So omitting years entirely
is a bad idea.

Anyway, one may well be correct in using date ranges, but why take an
unnecessary risk?  That is probably what the FSF's attorneys are
thinking.