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

[Han-Wen Nienhuys]

On Mon, Feb 13, 2023 at 11:53 AM Jean Abou Samra <jean@abou-samra.fr> wrote:
>
> 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
>
> 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.

I read it again, and you are right. The instructions say to update
each file even if the file itself wasn't changed in that year. I guess
the instructions codify what I find annoying in this practice: to
touch files even if they weren't changed in any way.

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

No.

> 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.

it is weird, but so is doing the grand update. We could decide to trim
our license headers to a smaller SPDX identifier without a year, but
we still have another year to go before a decision would make a
difference.

> 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.)



-- 
Han-Wen Nienhuys - hanwenn@gmail.com - http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen