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

[David Kastrup]

Wol <antlists@youngman.org.uk> writes:

> On 13/02/2023 22:50, Han-Wen Nienhuys wrote:
>>> 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.
>> 
> My gut feeling is that this is actually fraud.
>
> Strong words, I know, but if nothing creative has happened that is
> worthy of copyright, then to claim that the copyright has changed is
> just plain wrong.

For better or worse, the only way with copyright laws based on the Berne
convention where this could make a difference is once the author is
dead.  That's when the copyright clock starts ticking.

But it's not the point of time when a work under the GPL is licensed as
a whole.

For better or worse, the actual copyright situation with regard to who
may or may not have standing to enforce copyright when, is much more
complicated and mostly reflected by the version control change logs.

Before those were reliably available from version control, they were
meticulously maintained manually in every GNU project and led to lots of
moping from the developers.

The licensing headers are really not as much providing any kind of
dependable author information as they do provide a reference to the
license under which the entire work is provided.

> Personally, I'd be happiest if everybody who updated a file was
> responsible for making sure the copyright date was updated
> appropriately,

That is going to work fantastically well, right?  Distribute
responsibility until nobody feels responsible for anything and enjoy the
chaos.

-- 
David Kastrup