* Sean Whitton <[email protected]> [260828 08:56]: > The Wanderer [21/Aug 2:47pm -04] wrote: > > Unless I'm very much mistaken (which is always possible), the date of a > > copyright determines when that copyright will expire, and the > > copyrighted material will enter the public domain. > > > > AFAIK, we're well short of the first code that could still run on modern > > hardware entering the public domain - but it will presumably happen > > eventually, and having the copyright dates for the material in question > > could be valuable when that "eventually" becomes "currently". It's > > potentially even more relevant for non-code data, because that may be > > much more likely to still be usable (even if by newer code) on future > > hardware. > > Right. So good free software citizenship requires, I think, supplying > the years, with our future descendents in mind.
To be clear, supplying an _appropriate_ year, not just updating the year in every file for every upload to the archive. That would just make a lot more work for someone later on trying to enforce a copyright or trying to show a copyright had expired, in addition to just being busy work for the Debian maintainer. TBH, (I am not a lawyer) if Debian as a redistributor of someone else's software adds dates to copyright notices, but either does not send them back upstream or upstream refuses to accept them, I am dubious that the dates would have _any bearing at all_ in a legal battle. The only thing adding a date would protect would be changes made by Debian, not the original upstream code (and only if the dates were added in a separate copyright notice for and by the persons making the changes). To put it another way, I do not believe that Debian, as a redistributor, can in any way make changes to upstream's copyright or license. Adding a date to upstream's copyright notice is one such change that would (in my layman's opinion) be ineffectual in a legal battle. ...Marvin
