Re: RFC: stop doing "grand replace" updates to copyright years

[Jean Abou Samra]

Le lundi 13 février 2023 à 11:07 +0100, Han-Wen Nienhuys a écrit :
> Hi there,
> 
> Every year, we go over the source code to update the copyright years  
> that are found in the source headers. I propose to stop this.
> 
> We started doing this because of the GNU standards which say
> 
> [https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Copyright-Notices.html](https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Copyright-Notices.html)
> 
> but we aren't following the instructions: the instructions are to only  
> update the year if there were nontrivial changes to the file.



I don't understand this since it says

"""
When you add the new year, it is not required to keep track of which files have 
seen significant changes in the new year and which have not. It is recommended 
and simpler to add the new year to all files in the package, and be done with 
it for the rest of the year. 
"""

which sounds like exactly the opposite.


> IIUC, this could make some difference in 95 years (?) from now when versions  
> of the file might enter the public domain (assuming humans still exist  
> as a species, and has a need for beautifully typeset music).
> 
> I believe this advantage does not weigh up against the disadvantages,  
> which is that it makes the output of git-log harder to read, and that  
> the process takes up time and effort that could be more productively  
> spent elsewhere.
> 
> Also note that many other projects (eg. git) seem to survive just fine  
> without yearly exercise like this. Also, at $dayjob, there are no  
> instructions to do this, despite open source work being carefully  
> overseen by lawyers.



If we stop doing grand-replace, does it mean we have to update the copyright
noticed manually when we change a file?

Git, for example, does not have an equivalent of grand-replace simply because 
it does not have copyright notices in each file.

If accepting this proposal just means no more grand-replace, I'm fine with it, 
but it would seem a bit weird to keep "Copyright 1995-2023" at the top of all 
files even in 2025. If it means updating those years manually while making 
changes, I prefer the yearly update to be done with it.


To be honest, although I know there was work invested in them, I would 
personally be glad to see the individual copyright notices in each file just go 
away, although GNU purists will disagree. (But as a matter of fact, there are a 
lot of dated recommendations in the technical side of the GNU guidelines for 
maintainers.)

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